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PRESENTED BY 



/ l^llOy 



Ube mniverstti? ot dbtcaao 

FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 



SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

A STUDY OF THE SOURCES OF THE LEGEND 



A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND 

LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

(department of ENGLISH) 



BY 

REGINALD HARVEY GRIFFITH 



THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 



THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 

Hgentg 

THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 

NEW YORK 



CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

LONDON AND EDINBURGH 



XTbe ^niversitp of dbicaao 

FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 



SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

A STUDY OF THE SOURCES OF THE LEGEND 






A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND 

LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

(department of ENGLISH) 



BY 

REGINALD HARVEY GRIFFITH 



THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 






Copyright 1911 By 
The Univbesity of Chicaoo 



All Eights Reserved 



Published March 1911 

Gin 
OCT 13 19U 



Composed and Printed By 

The University of Chicago Press 

Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. 



0/ 



PREFACE 

In making this investigation, many obstacles besides the scanti- 
ness of time allowed by classroom duties have had to be overcome. 
The University of Texas library is not a large one, and, in the 
field immediately concerned, is weak. Access to needed books 
has been had only in summer vacations and in libraries a thousand 
miles and more away from Austin. The difficulty continues a 
very present one. In seeing the book through the press, I have 
not been able to verify references by a comparison with original 
authorities, but have had to rely upon my manuscript notes. To 
hope that no errors have crept in is unreasonable; but I trust the 
reader will find them few, and will believe that I have made a 
painstaking endeavor to avoid them. 

In seeking the origins of the Perceval tale, I have circum- 
scribed the interpretation of "origins.'^ It is the immediate 
ancestry, not the ultimate source, that has here been sought. 
I have made no inquiry into Old Irish literature in the expectation 
of pointing out its parallels to the Perceval tale, if such there be; 
nor any into folklore domains in the hope of tracing the tale or 
its elements to an origin in custom, myth, or rehgion. Finally, 
the Grail problem lies outside the limits of this investigation, 
since no allusion to the Grail occurs in the English poem which is 
taken as the point of departure. 

In several ways this study is incomplete, as perhaps any study 
of its kind must be. The number of tales discussed is large, for 
I have mentioned every tale I have found that appears to throw 
light on the origin of the tale of Perceval as it is told in Sir Perceval 
of Galles; but the collection makes no pretense to finality. There 
are doubtless many variants now unknown to me. If the reader 
will indicate any such, I shall feel much beholden to him. In 
especial, the tale which is studied in chapter III (the tale in which 
a despised youth avenges an insult to his king and relieves his 
relatives from the attacks of an army that, slain every day, is 
restored to life every night by a hag with a reviving cordial) is 



VI PREFACE 

intrinsically most interesting, and would surely repay investiga- 
tion. J. F. Campbell says his MSS contained variants. Still 
others are doubtless procurable. Any tales, too, that appear akin 
to the story of the secondary heroine, the lady whom Perceval 
kissed and so brought into reproach, will be welcome additions. 

The courtesies I have received from many people are remem- 
bered most kindly and with a lively sense of obligation. To 
Professor John M. Manly, of the University of Chicago, I owe 
a debt of gratitude for inducting me into the mystery and fascina- 
tion of mediaeval romance. The late Alfred Nutt, whose recent 
death seems a personal loss to me, was very kind when I ventured 
to seek him in his house of business some years ago. Miss Jessie 
L. Weston was cordially friendly when I had opportunity to dis- 
cuss Sir Perceval with her one summer. To the books and articles 
of the many students who have preceded me my indebtedness is 
writ large on every page. The authorities of Lincoln Cathedral, 
of the British Museum, of the Library of Congress, and of the 
university libraries at Yale, Harvard, Chicago, Wisconsin, and 
Texas I desire to thank heartily for their many favors. And to 
my colleagues and very good friends. Professor Callaway, Professor 
Campbell, and Dr. Law, my very best thanks are due for criticism 
and many another deed of kindness; all of them have ''read proof" 
for me; how can friendship do more? — unless it be to "read proof" 
twice, as Professor Campbell and Professor Callaway have both 
done. 

R. H. Griffith 

Austin, Texas, U.S.A. 
March 7, 19 11 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction . i 

Statement of the problem. — Materials from which evidence is to 
be adduced: a condensed bibliography. — ^Resume of opinions of 
some of the most important students. — ^Lines of investigation in 
the present study. 

Chapter I: The Hero's Forest Rearing . . .14 

The four incidents to be considered. — Comparison of SP and C 
by siunmaries. — ^Evidence of other versions, by summaries. The 
father's marriage tournament, in SP and W. The father's 
death, in SP, PC, W, Pd, Card, Fool; some comments. The 
widow's flight, in SP, PC, W, Pd, Card, Fool. Boyish exploits, in 
SP, W, Pd, Card, Fool, Ty; coirmient; evidence of C. — ^Table. — 
Argument: C as the source; any other version as the source. — 
Conclusions. 

Chapter II: The Hero's Awkward Attempts to Follow 

Instructions 29 

The four incidents to be considered; materials not sufficient for an 
argument; summary of SP. — ^Two divisions of two incidents 
each.— Table: SP, W, Card, Ty, Fool, C, Pd, PC— First, or 
Religious Instruction-Forest Knights portion; comment. — Second, 
or Advice-Tent adventure portion: Advice, summaries of SP, W, 
Card, Ty, C, Pd; Tent incident, summaries of SP, W, C, Pd; 
comment. — ^Tentative conclusion. 

Chapter III: The Red Knight- Witch-Uncle Story . 40 

The five incidents to be considered. — Summaries of SP and C. — 
Their differences. — Incident of the arrival of the hero at court; 
summaries of Pd, Ty, Card, Fool; comment. — ^The Red Knight- 
Witch-Uncle story: summaries of SP, Pd{a), Pd{h), G, Red Sh, 
Red Sh Variants, Conall; table of incidents; table of particulars; 
summaries of another set of tales, arranged in four groups. — 
Comment and argument on the Red Knight- Witch-Uncle story; 
the Insult, its types; the Meeting with Relatives, the number of 
meetings, the Uncle, the Three Young Men, the two Women; the 
Witch; the Death of the Insulter. — Recapitulation. — The incor- 
poration of the story into the frame-tale. 

vii 



Vlll CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Chapter IV: The Relief of the Besieged Lady . .78 

The six incidents to be considered. — Summaries of SP and C. — 
Their four notable differences. — "The Saracen Influence"; sum- 
maries of SP, W, Conall, Saudan Og, Pd(b) ; difficulties in the way 
of the argument. — Recapitulation; comment and argument on 
the "Saracen Influence." — ^A new problem stated. 

Chapter V: The Rescue of the Lady Falsely Accused 94 

The nine incidents to be considered; two groups, the first of seven, 
the second of two incidents. — Summary of SP. — ^An incident- 
outline of SP, C, W, Pd. — The Tent Lady's history: differences 
between SP and C — ^The Snow Scene in C. — The Tent Lady- 
Giant story: summaries of Yv and LF {SP not repeated); table 
of incidents; table of particulars. — ^Threads that bind this story 
together: Tent Lord's suspicion; the Lady's ring; the Giant 
combat and Gawain's relative. — The evidence of W concerning 
this story. — SP and C compared again. — The hero's mother. — 
His wife. — ^The end of the tale. 

Conclusion . . 116 

JR,esume of the foregoing chapters. — ^The test of S3mthesis. — 
A-Stage: summary of frame- tale; tales showing it. — ^B -Stage: 
summary of Red Knight-Witch-Uncle story; tales showing it; 
the process of absorption; summary of the resultant account. — 
C-Stage: simmiary of Tent Lady-Giant story; process of absorp- 
tion; smnmary of the resultant account. — D-Stage: cleavage; one 
branch subjected to Saracen Influence; development within this 
stage. — ^E-Stage: the Grafl story incorporated. — F-Stage: the Swan 
Ejiight story incorporated. — ^Diagram. — Geographical home of the 
sources. — ^A final word on the evidence adduced. — SP independent 
of C. — SP probably not the translation of any French poem. 



INTRODUCTION 

The problem to which the following pages address themselves 
concerns the origin of the mediaeval English poem Sir Perceval of 
Galles, whether or not it is the offspring of a romance composed 
in French by Crestien de Troyes and now commonly known as 
Perceval le Gallois, ou le Conte du Graal. 

The materials from which to draw evidence for an argument are 
a group of tales' gathered from widely separated places — from 
England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, from France, Germany, 
and Italy. They may be Hsted as follows: 

1. SP. — Sir Perceval of Galles {ca. 1370) is a Middle-English 
metrical romance, preserved, with some imperfections and sHght 
irregularities, as 143 sixteen-Hne stanzas (2,288 lines), in a single 
MS, the Thornton MS of Lincoln Cathedral. It was printed by 
J. O. Halliwell in The Thornton Romances (pp. 1-87), for the Camden 
Society in 1844, and reprinted at the Kelmscott Press in 1895. 
Its dialect is Northwest Midland, its date about the middle of the 
fourteenth century (some of its phrases are quoted in Chaucer's 
"Sir Thopas"); its author is unknown, but its rhyme-scheme and 
plot-structure indicate that the coniposer was not without practice.^ 

2. C. — Crestien's tale of Perceval, Le Conte du Graal {ca. 1175), 
is an uncompleted poem of about 9,300 lines in Old French. It 
usually appears as part of a mass of verse that grew up around it. 

This composite mass developed because of the desire of other poets to 
finish what Crestien left unfinished. No single book contains all of it. There 
are sixteen MSS, the longest of which stretched its meter to the length (impos- 
sible, let us hope, outside of an antique song) of more than 63,000 lines. A 
prose redaction was printed in Paris in 1530, and Potvin edited the larger 
part of the "poem" as Perceval le Gallois, ou le Conte du Graal, in six volumes, 
Mons, 1866-71. Besides Crestien, three other contributors are known by 
name, Wauchier (Gaucher, Gautier), Manessier, and Gerbert; but the limits 

' I have unifonnly used the word "tale" to mean the whole account any one author gives 
of his hero; "story" to mean a group of incidents more closely bound to each other than to 
other incidents in the tale in which they stand — a circle within a circle, so to speak. 

* For working bibliography see A. H. Billings, "A Guide to the Middle English Metrical 
Romances," Yale Studies in English (igoi), 125 fif. 



2 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

of the portions they contributed are uncertain. At least two writers prefixed 
introductions to Crestien's lines. One of these introductions and the portions 
by Crestien and Gerbert are the parts of the "poem" I have used most. 

3. PC. — The second of the two introductions just mentioned is 
about 800 lines long; once thought by some scholars to be by 
Crestien, it is now considered the work of an anonymous contrib- 
utor, and is referred to as one of the "pseudo- Crestien" portions. 
It is preserved in two MSS, Mons and British Museum Add. 36,614; 
its substance appears in part in the prose redaction of 1530; and 
it is printed in full from MS Mons by Potvin. The first introduc- 
tion (Potvin, 1-484) may be referred to as Elucidation. 

4. G. — Gerbert's '' Continuation" is preserved in two MSS, 
but it has not been printed. I have had to rely upon two resumes, 
one given by Potvin (Vol. VI) and the other by Miss Weston in 
The Library (magazine), January, 1904. Gerbert's 10,000 lines 
appear in the MSS between the parts by Wauchier and Manessier. 

If the reader will imagine Potvin's edition revised so as to place 
Gerbert's lines before Manessier's, he may gather from the appended 
table an idea of the various parts of the Conte. 



Author 


Lines 


Nature of Contents 


Assigned Date 


Anonvmous 


1-484 
485-1,282 
1,283-10,601 

10,602-34,934 
34,93 S-ca. 45 ,000 
ca. 45,000-fa. 63,000 


"Elucidation"; ^ Grail's 
mystery and winners 

Death of Perceval's father; 
flight of his mother 

Perceval's deeds; Ga- 
wain's adventures 

Adventures of Perceval 

and others 
Ditto 

Ditto 


1220-30 
1220-30 
I175 

I 190-1200 

1216-25 

I2I0-''20 


Anonymous 


Crestien de Troyes .... 

Wauchier, and Inter- 
polators 


Gerbert 

Manessier, and Inter- 
polators 







For discussions of these tales see the books mentioned on pp. 
7 ff., infra, and the authorities to which they in turn refer. 

5. W. — Parzival ( ?i 200-1 2 16), a Middle-High- German poem by 
Wolfram von Eschenbach, has been preserved in many MSS and 
edited by several scholars. I have used editions by K. Bartsch 
{Deutsche Classiker des Mittelalters, Leipzig, 1875-77), P. Piper 
{Deutsche National-Litteratur, Stuttgart, 1890-92), and K. Lach- 



INTRODUCTION 3 

mann (4th ed., Berlin, 1879); translations by Hertz and by 
Botticher into modern German; and the translation by Miss Weston 
into English. The poem is arranged in sixteen books, averaging 
about 1,500 lines each. Books I-VI and XIV are the ones I have 
used most. My references are to Bartsch's edition. 

6. Pd. — Peredur (?i 2 50-13 50), a Welsh prose tale in which the 
hero is Perceval under another name, is preserved in the Welsh 
Red Book of Hergest, dating from i3oo(?) to i35o(?). It was 
translated into English by Lady Charlotte Guest {The Mabinogion, 
1838-49), and into French by J. Loth (in D. de Jubainville's 
Cours de Litt. Celtique, Vol. IV, Paris, 1889). Reprints of Lady 
Guest's text issued by D. Nutt, 1902, 1904, by Dent, 1906, and 
by other publishers have made Peredur the most easily accessible 
of all the versions of the Perceval tale. My references are by pages 
to Nutt's reprint (when no name is given) and to Loth's translation. 

I have not had opportunity to see The White Book Mabinogion: Welsh 
Tales and Romances Reproduced from the Peniarth MSS, edited by J. Gwen- 
ogvryn Evans, PwUheli, 1909. In his review of this volume {Folk Lore, June, 
1910, pp. 237-46), Nutt comments upon Evans' Introduction. 

7. Ty. — Tyolet (?i25o), a French lai preserved in a single MS, 
was printed by G. Paris in Romania^ VIII (1879). The 704 lines 
of the poem fall into two parts : {a) the early life of Tyolet and his 
coming to court (1-320); {h) the adventure of the White Stag, 
whereby Tyolet wins a wife (321-704). I have used all of the 
first part, and the concluding lines of the second. 

8. Card. — Carduino (?i375), an Italian poem, was published 
from a unique MS by Rajna in 1873 {Poemetti Cavallereschi, Bologna). 
A portion of the poem is wanting in the middle. There remain two 
cantos, one of thirty-five eight-line stanzas, the other of seventy- 
two. My references are to stanzas. 

Card is the most primitive of its group of four tales; the others are Libeaus 
Desconus (LD), Bel Inconnu (BI), and Wigalois (Wig). For an excellent 
study of the group cf. W. H. Schofield, "Studies on the Libeaus Desconus," 
Harvard Studies and Notes, IV, 1895. 

9. Yv. — Yvain (?ii65), by Crestien de Troyes, ed. by W. 
Foerster, Halle, 1887, and later years. References are to the 
edition of 1906. 



4 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

10. LF. — The Lady of the Fountain (?i25o), the Welsh version 
of the Iwain tale, is accessible in Lady Guest's Mabinogion (Nutt's 
reprint, pp. 167 ff.) and in Loth's translation (ref. as for Pd, supra), 
pp. I ff. 

On 9-10, see a valuable essay by A. C. L. Brown, "Iwain: A Study in the 
Origins of Arthurian Romance" {Harvard Sttidies and Notes, VIII, 1-147), 
1903; and Foerster's comment on Brown's book, Yvain (ed. 1906), p. xlix. 

Besides the materials already mentioned there are some folk- 
tales still current that furnish evidence. These tales are told of 
different heroes, and no one of them relates more than a portion of 
the adventures attributed to Perceval. Often, indeed, it requires 
a comparative study to show that the adventures are akin. The 
citation of these tales, however, makes it possible for us to study 
the evolution of the Perceval tale. They are presented in three 
groups. 

THE SCOTCH GROUP 

11. Fool. — Amadan Mor, or the Lay of the Great Fool.^ 

12. Red Sh. — The Knight of the Red Shield. 

13. Conall. — Conall Gulban.^ 

14. Een. — How the Een Was Set Up.^ 

1 1-14 are from J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands (four 
vols., London, 1890-93): Fool, III, 160-93; Red Sh, II, 451-93; Conall, III, 
199-297; Een, III, 348-60. 

15. Manus. — A Tale of Young Manus. 

Maclnnes and Nutt, "Folk and Hero Tales of Argyllshire," Waifs and 
Strays of Celtic Tradition, II (1890), 338-75. 

' There are other versions of the Lay, which may be spoken of as variants: var. a is O'Daly's, 
in Transactions of the Ossianic Soc, VI, 161-207; var. h, "Amadan Mor and the Gruagach 
of the Castle of Gold," in Curtin's Hero Tales of Ireland, 140-62; and var, c, "The Amadhan 
Mor," in Kennedy's Bardic Stories of Ireland (1871), 151-55. 

' Conall var. a, "The Adventures of Conall Gulban," is in Kennedy's Bardic Stories of 
Ireland, 156-60; its variations do not help us. Dr. D. Hyde says (Beside the Fire [London, 
1890], p. xxxii)' "On comparing [Campbell's Conall] with an Irish MS, by Father Manus 
O'Donnell, made in 1708, and another made about the beginning of this century, by Michael 
O'Longan, of Carricknavar, I was surprised to find incident following incident with wonderful 
regiilarity in both versions." 

* There are several versions of Fionn's youthful deeds, which only in part parallel those 
of Perceval. A second version is "The Boyish Exploits of Finn MacCmnhail" in Transactions 
of the Ossianic Soc. (Dublin, 1859). A third is "The Birth of Fin MacCvunhail"; see chap, 
iii, 64, infra. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

1 6. Big Men. — Fin MacCoul in the Kingdom of the Big Men. 

17. Ransom. — Fionn^s Ransom. 

16-17 are in J. G. Campbell, "The Fians," Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tra- 
dition, IV, 175-91, 242-57. 

THE IRISH GROUP 

18. Lonesome. — The King of Erin and the Queen of Lonesome 
Island. 

19. Kil A. — Kil Arthur. 

20. Fear Duhh. — Fin MacCumhail and the Fenians of Erin in 
the Castle of Fear Duhh. 

18-20 are in J. Curtin, Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland (Boston, 1890), 
93-113,175-85,221-31. 

21. Coldfeet. — Coldfeet and the Queen of Lonesome Island. 

22. Lawn D. — Lawn Dyarrig, Son of the King of Erin, and the 
Green Knight of Terrible Valley . 

23. Faolan. — Fin MacCool, Faolan, and the Mountain of Happi- 
ness. 

21-23 are in J. Curtin, Hero-Tales of Ireland (Boston, 1894), 242-61, 
262-82,484-513. 

24. Mananaun. — King Mananaun. 

25. Red Belt. — The Champion of the Red Belt. 

24-25 are in W. Larminie, West Irish Folk Tales and Romances (London, 
1893), 64-84, 85-105. 

26. D^yerree. — The Well of D^yerree-in-Dowan. 
D. Hyde, Beside the Fire (London, 1890), 129-41. 

27. Dough. — Amadan of the Dough. 

28. Hookedy. — Hookedy-Crookedy . 

27-28 are in S. MacManus, Donegal Fairy Tales (New York, 1900), 29-57, 
95-133- 

29. Golden Mines. — Queen of the Golden Mines. 

S. MacManus, In Chimney Corners (New York, 1899), 37-53. 



6 SIR PERCEVAL OE GALLES 

THE WELSH GROUP 

30. Kg of Eng. — King of England and His Three Sons. 

J. Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales (1894), 132-45. Although in a book 
of English tales, this tale, so a note implies, came from a gypsy in Wales. 

BRETON TALES 

The two tales of Morvan Lez Breiz, and Peronnik V Idiot I have 
not used: primarily, because they offer no help; Morvan offers 
only the battle against a black giant, the ^'More du Roi," which 
bears but the faintest likeness to a part of SP, and gives no help 
at all, and Peronnik is like SP in only two places — the beginning 
and the end — and only vaguely similar there; and secondarily 
because de la Villemarque's Morvan has been discredited, and 
Souvestre's Peronnik has been suspected of being not altogether a 
folk-tale, not altogether free, i.e., from "cooking." 

TEUTONIC TALES 

Nutt, "Mabinogion Studies," Folk Lore Record, V (1882), 1-32, 
compares Red Sh with the Faroese Hognilied, with parts of the 
Volsunga and the Thiarek Sagas, and with the Hilde legend 
(mentioned in Bartsch's Kudrun, pp. v-viii). I have not been able 
to get at the books for a proper study of the Hild story, and cannot 
tell whether it is akin to the "Red Knight- Witch-Uncle story" 
of chapter III, infra, or not. Two versions given in Magntisson 
and Morris' Three Northern Love Stories (London, 1901) give no 
evidence of kinship; the same statement holds for Saxo Gram- 
maticus; for the brief outlines in Bartsch's and in Symons' editions 
of Gudrun and in Schofield's translation (pp. 193-94) of S. Bugge's 
The Home of the Eddie Poems (London, 1899); and for the discus- 
sions in Paul's Grundriss (2d ed.), Ill, 711, in F. Panzer's Hilde- 
Gudrun (1901), and in F. E. Sandbach's Niehelungenlied and Gudrun 
in England and America (1903). 

For the tales that I have listed the source has been carefully 
stated by all the collectors except MacManus. 



INTRODUCTION 7 

Other tales are referred to, but bibliographical information con- 
cerning them is given in notes. 

On the propriety of using these tales, see the note on p. 41, 
infra. 

In the seventy years since the matter began to be much discussed, 
almost every shade of opinion possible has been expressed concern- 
ing the relation of the English Sir Perceval to the French Conte 
du Graal. The English poem makes no mention of the Grail, yet, 
paradoxically, every scholar who has studied the origin of the 
Grail legend has been forced to consider the Sir Perceval. Digests 
of the body of the literature that has thus grown up are to be found 
in several places; e.g., in A. Nutt's Studies in the Legend of the Holy 
Grail (London, 1888); in E. Wechssler's Die Sage vom heiligen 
Gral in ihrer Entwicklung bis auf Richard Wagners Parsifal (Halle, 
1898); and in Miss J. L. Weston's Legend of Sir Perceval (London, 
1906-9). On the more restricted subject, the relation of the Eng- 
lish poem to the French, a good working resume is given by Miss 
A. H. Billings, in her ''Guide to the Middle EngHsh Metrical 
Romances," Yale Studies, IX (1901). It does not seem advisable 
to recapitulate here all the opinions scholars have expressed, but 
the leading ones, arranged in groups, may be stated. 

FIRST group: GERVINUS and GASTON PARIS 

1 87 1. Gervinus, G. G. Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung. 3 vols. Leip- 
zig. Fiinfte vollig umgearbeitete Auflage. — i, 576-77: "Wir haben oben die 
bretagnischen Volkslieder von Morvan erwahnt, die von seiner einsamen Wald- 
erziehung erzahlen, und wie er seine Mutter, nach Ritterthaten diirstend, ver- 
lasst, die dann der Gram um ihn todtet. Ob diese einfache Sage zuerst an dem 
Namen Morvan oder an welchem anderen gehaftet habe, ist gleichgiiltig; 
gewiss ist sie der Kern und Rahmen der Sage, deren Held im 12. Jahrh. in 
walschen und romanischen Erzahlungen die Namen Peredur und Parzival 
fiihrt. In einer sehr volksthiimlichen Gestalt, die an jenem einfachen Kern 
am treuesten festhalt, ist die Sage in einem spaten, strophisch abgetheilten, 
burlesken Gedichte eines englischen Bankelsangers des 14. Jahrhs. erhalten, 
das einem alteren bretagnischen Lai nacherzahlt sein mag." 

1883. Paris, Gaston. "Perceval et la legende du Saint-Graal," Bulletin 
de la Societe Historique et Cercle Saint-Simon, II (November, 1882, Paris): 
"Le conte de Perceval appartient a la tradition galloise, recueillie de la bouche 



8 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

des conteurs et musiciens gallois par les jongleurs et trouveurs normands ou 
frangais apres la conquete de I'Angleterre. La forme la plus authentique de ce 
conte nous est sans doute representee par un poeme anglais du XIIP siecle, 

Sir Perzivell, dans lequel le graal ne joue encore aucun role Le Sir 

Perzivell s'appuie certainement sur un poeme anglo-normand perdu, et nous 
offre un specimen des romans biographiques qui forment la plus ancienne 
couche des romans frangais du cycle breton" (pp. 98-99). 

1888. [Paris, Gaston.] Histoire liiieraire de la France, Ouvrage commence 
par des Religieux Benedictins, etc. (Paris), Vol. XXX: "L'editeur, M. Halli- 
well, le (SP) regardait tout simplement comme un abrege tres sommaire du 
Perceval de Chretien et des continuations de ce poeme. Une telle opinion 

n'est pas soutenable Le 'Sir Percevelle'remonte done a une autre source, 

et sans doute a un poeme anglo-normand (p. 259) La vraie place de 

'Sir Percevelle' dans revolution du cycle toujours amplifie de Perceval a, 

au contraire, ete parfaitement discernee par un savant qui est un poete 

M. Wilhelm Hertz .... a montre que le poeme anglais nous represente, 
sous une forme assez voisine de I'original, quoique alteree, un des elements 
primordiaux qui sont entres dans la composition du conte gallois et du roman 
frans:ais. II faut ajouter, comme nous I'avons dit, que ce poeme repose tres 
probablement sur un poeme anglo-normand, derriere lequel on peut avec 
vraisemblance chercher un conte purement celtique" (p. 261). 

SECOND group: steinbach, nutt, and kolbing 

1885. Steinbach, Paul. Ueber den einfluss des Crestien de Troies auf die 
altenglische literatur. Diss., Leipzig: "Dass diese annahme des beriihinten 
literar-historikers (Gervinus) betreffs der vorlage unseres gedichtes entschieden 

eine irrige zu nennen ist, wird die folgende untersuchung zeigen (p. 28) 

Bis vers 820 folgt der engl. dichter genau dem gauge der erzahlung des franzo- 
sichen gedichtes (hier bis vers 2400), mit nur wenigen und nicht bedeutenden 
abanderungen, .... dagegen manchen punkt weglassend und stark kiirzend. 

Von vers 821 findenwir .... Cr. mehr oder weniger freibenutzt (35) 

In einen, urspriinglich bretonischen iiberlieferungen entstammenden rahmen 
hat er [the English poet] in freier kiirzender bearbeitung, unter benutzung 
einiger vielleicht bei den in England wohnenden Bretonen vorgefundenen 
volkstiimlichen ziige, teils alteren, teils neueren ursprungs, und unter hinzu- 
fiigung einiger an die schilderung von kampfen in den Chansons de geste 
erinnernder partien, das Crestiensche werk 'Li contes del graal' bis ca. v. 6000 
eingeschoben, indem er sich dabei im ersten telle seines gedichtes (bis v. 821) 
mehr, im letzteren weniger an dasselbe anlehnt und zugleich mit bemerkens- 
werter konsequenz jede beriihrung mit der gralsage vermeidet" (41). 

1881. Nutt, Alfred. "The Aryan Expulsion-and-Return Formula in 
the Folk and Hero-Tales of the Celts," Folk-Lore Record, IV, 1-44: "Schulz's 
opinion that the English romance is a translation or a close imitation of a twelfth- 



INTRODUCTION 9 

century Breton poem is probably correct. The romance represents at any 
rate an independent and, in many respects, older treatment of the subject than 
the Mabinogi" (ii). 

1888. Nutt, Alfred. Studies in the Legend of the Holy Grail, etc., London: 
Nutt restates Steinbach's view, and adds, "The use of Chrestien by the author 
of Sir Perceval seems, however, uncontestable: and, such being the case, Stein- 
bach's views meet the difi&culties of the case fairly well" (150). 

1891. Nutt, Alfred. "Les derniers travaUx allemands sur la legende du 
Saint Graal," Revue Celtique; same art., Folk Lore, II, Appendix: "Mais M. 
Golther a-t-il parfaitement raison? II n'expose nulle part sa these d'une 
fagon claire, mais je ne crois pas aller au dela de sa pensee en la formulant ainsi: 
Chrestien a le premier traite le sujet de la quete du Graal et de la lance qui 
saigne; tout ce qui a ete ecrit depuis releve de son roman inacheve et a ete ecrit 
dans le but de le completer; a la verite il avoue avoir puise a une source anteri- 
eure, mais cette source est entierement perdue et n'a eu aucune influence sur 

les autres ecrivains du cycle [Folk Lore, p. xxv] Je n'ai pu que me 

rencontrer avec des erudits distingues, en y reconnaissant des traits archaiques 
[ in SP], L'auteur, on le sait, laisse absoliunent de cote tout ce qui, chez 
Chrestien, se rapporte au Graal. La faute en est toujours, d'apres M. Golther, 
aux allures enigma tiques du poete frangais; dans le doute, le traducteur anglais 
s'est abstenu. Voila une reserve dont on trouverait difiicilement un second 
exemple chez les ecrivains du moyen age. Mais lui aussi a connu non seule- 
ment Mennecier, auquel, d'apres indication formelle de M. Golther, il a 
emprunte la fin de son roman, mais aussi Gerbert, auquel, ex hypothesi, il a d<i 
emprunter, en denaturant etrangement, I'episode de la vieille sorciere. Lui 
done aussi, il a neglige les indications formelles de ses modeles sur la nature et 
la provenance du Graal; lui qui ex hypothesi Goltheri ecrivait vers 1250 au plus 
t6t (Gerbert est de 1 230-1 240), a ignore I'immense litterature qui existait des 
lors sur Vhisioire du Graal" (xxxiv). 

1895-96. Kolbing, E. Vollmollers J ahresbericht, etc., II, 42g: "Wahrend 
W. Golther das englische Gedicht immittelbar auf Crestiens Werk zuriick- 
fiihren will und es als eine freie Bearbeitung des Conte del Graal und einzelner 
Motive aus Werken seiner Fortsetzer bezeichnet, deren eigene Ziige samtlich 
dem Kopfe des Bearbeiters entsprungen seien, erblickt A. Nutt in dieser 
Fassung eine Verquickung von Crestiens Epos allein (ohne die Fortsetzungen) 
mit keltischen Sagen. Ich muss gestehen, dass mir vor der Hand Nutts 
Ansicht mehr Wahrscheinlichkeit fiir sich zu haben scheint." 

THIRD group: golther, suchier-birch-hirschfeld, and 

NEWELL 

1890. Golther, W. Chrestiens conte del graal in seinem verhaltniss zum 
wdlschen Peredur und zum englischen Perceval. Sitzungsberichte der philos- 
phil. u. hist. Classe der Bayern Akad. d. Wiss. Munich, II, 174-217: "Dass das 



lO SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

gedicht [SP] unter dem einfluss Chrestiens steht, kaiin nicht bestritten werden. 
Es erhebt sich nur die frage, wie die von Chrestien abweichenden ziige auf- 

zufassen sind (203) Das englische gedicht ist u. e. unmittelbar auf 

Chrestiens werk zuriickzufiihren so gut wie das mahinogi; es ist eine freie 
bearbeitung des conte del graal; die ihm eigenen ziige entstammen sammtlich 
dem kopfe des bearbeiters und diirfen nicht fiir die erklarung der Perceval-sage 
irgendwie beniitzt werden, fiir welche es, als aus einer bekannten franzosischen 

vorlage abgeleitet, iiberhaupt nicht in betracht kommt (207) Alle 

anderen quellen haben fiir diese frage, als aus Chrestien abgeleitet, gar keine 
bedeutung. Jeder andere standpunct tragt von vornherein unlosliche wirren 

in die forschung (213) Auf den ursprung der letzteren [the thoren- 

marchen as distinct from the graalsage], der keineswegs aufs keltische zuriick- 
gehen muss, will ich hier nicht eingehen, nur zum schluss die vermutung aus- 
sprechen dass die Percevalsage, worunter ich die verwendung marchenhafter 
motive verstehe, in ihrer literarischen form ein werk Chrestiens zu sein scheint. 
Denn die tatsache ist einmal nicht abzuleugnen, dass alle literarischen denk- 
maler, die bis jetzt bekannt sind, auf Chrestien zuriickweisen, und keines mit 
sicherheit auf eine altere quelle" (213). 

1900. Suchier, Hermann, und Birch-Hirschfeld, Adolf. Geschichte der 
franzosischen Liiteratur von den dltesten Zeiten his zur Gegenwart, Leipzig und 
Wien: "Der mittelenglische 'Perceval' ist nur ein verblasster Ausfluss aus 
Christian," etc. (147). 

1 902 . Newell, William Wells. The Legend of the Holy Grail and the Perceval 
ofCrestien of Troyes, Cambridge, Mass. (Newell quotes Golther's opinion with 
emphatic approval.) "This curious example of a popular rhymed novelette 
{SP\ of the fourteenth century assuredly can boast no more remote antiquity. 
The love story may very well be explained as made up under the influence of 
suggestions indirectly obtained from the extant French poem, and the style 
and proper names correspond to such a supposition. A Hngering remnant of 
the portion of Crestien's story relating to the unasked question may be found 
in the untimely reverie of the hero. That the knight of the cup should be 
represented as the slayer of Percevelle's father is entirely in the manner of a 
reconstructor; that the vengeance is unintentional, and even unknown, shows 
that the feature is not ancient. A considerable number of verbal coincidences 
attest the connection with the French verse, which is further made clear by 
the proper name of the hero. Sir Percevelle le Galayse. The incidents of the 
German, Welsh, and English versions of the story, where they vary from the 
tale of Crestien, also disagree with each other; such aberration, according to the 
remarks above offered, is a plain indication that the changes must be considered 
as due only to the fancy of the several recasters. Minor agreements between 
traits of the English poem and those, for example, mentioned by Wolfram, 
are to be disregarded, being in every case expHcable as due to a common inter- 
pretation of the data of the French original. The assumption of an Anglo- 
Norman romance as the presumed source of the Enghsh verse (suggested by 



INTRODUCTION 



II 



G. Paris) ought not to be considered so long as the production can be explained 
as a variation founded on a vera causa, on the celebrated and easily accessible 
work of Crestien. The outlines of the latter composition might easily, in 
the fourteenth century, come into the knowledge of a popular poet" (82). 
These opinions may be tabulated thus: 



SP derived from C 


SP influenced by C 


SI 


* independent of C 




' 


1842. 
1842. 

1871. 
1880. 
1881. 
1883. 

1888. 

1891. 
1898. 

1906- 


San Marte 






(A. Schulz) 
De la Villemarqu6 


1844. 


Halliwell 




(discredited) 






Gervinus 






Martin (?) 




1881. Nutt(?) 


Nutt ( ?) 




Paris, G. 




1885. Steinbach 
1888. Nutt 






K.aluza, 


1890. 


Golther 
Zimmer (?) 


Paris, G. 


1 89 1. Nutt 
1895-6. Kolbing 


Heinzel 








Wechssler 


1 890. 


Foerster (?) 
Suchier-Birch- 
Hirschfeld 
Newell 






1900. 






1902. 








9. Weston 







No scholar, so far as I know, believes that Crestien invented the 
materials he used in his Perceval poem. But some students con- 
tend that it is impossible for us, through a study of such tales as 
we now have, to arrive at any definite knowledge concerning those 
materials as they were before Crestien used them, and that Crestien 's 
poem and the idiosyncrasies of later writers are sufficient to account 
for all later versions; and they assert (implicitly, if not explicitly) 
that only documentary evidence of a date prior to Crestien's time 
can be held sufiicient to prove any version's independence of the 
Frenchman's Conte. Other scholars hold that other versions of the 
tale bear within themselves evidence, if not proof, that they have 
inherited portions of the source materials through a tradition inde- 
pendent of Crestien. 

Most of the tales (all from i through 14 mentioned above) that 
I intend to compare have been studied in connection with the 
Perceval tale before. I, unhappy that I am, have no manuscript 



12 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

risen from the dead with which to convince unbeKevers. It 
remained for me to see if a more minute observation of the facts 
and a new marshaling of the evidence could not be made to present 
that proof of one theory or another which has hitherto been wanting. 

Since the matter has long been in dispute, it is evidently not 
easy to prove that all the versions are based on Crestien's; and 
since, on the contrary, no single version has been proved to be 
independent of Crestien's, it is difhcult to see how the evidence of 
any one version can be of any value in an effort to prove the inde- 
pendence of any other. The method of investigation I have 
adopted is one that I learned in my college days in mathematics — 
the method of demonstrating the falsity of a hypothesis by assum- 
ing that it is true and then exposing the inadequacy or absurdity 
in which it ends. In this way the versions are made — and that 
without begging the question — to furnish evidence concerning 
themselves. 

For this working hypothesis I have assumed that Crestien's 
poem is the source out of which the other Perceval romances were 
evolved. Upon this hypothesis, it is patent that departures from 
C are the evidence to be sought especially, not agreements with it. 
And departures are of no worth unless two or more tales agree in 
making the same departures. In this search I soon found that 
summaries could not be omitted, though at first I had hoped to 
avoid printing them and depend upon references to those of my 
predecessors.^ In order to prepare these summaries I divided 
each tale into incidents. These, of course, are subdivisible into 
items and points, but the incident has been my unit. In present- 
ing my study I have followed the sequence of incidents in 5P. 
The incidents occur in groups, and my comparisons have proceeded 
according to these groups. 

Five such groups, apparently, are presented in SP, and I have 
devoted a chapter to each one. At the beginning of each chapter 
I have summarized and compared SP and C, and stated whatever 
conclusions the comparison warranted; next I have brought in 
any other tales that have a bearing, summarizing, comparing them 

' Cf., e.g., Birch-Hirschfeld, Die Sage vom Gral (Leipzig, 1877); A. Nutt, Sftcd.; and Miss 
J. L. Weston, Leg. of SP. 



INTRODUCTION 1 3 

with SP and C, and stating my conclusions. To make my meaning 
more readily intelligible, I have recapitulated by means of tables. 
I have condensed this volume as much as possible. I am aware 
that as a consequence some of my paragraphs, because of the close- 
ness of the argument and the number of abbreviations, items, and 
tables used, must offer some trouble to the reader; but I trust that 
this trouble and the arithmetical look of some of the pages will not 
annoy him overmuch. My plan necessitates the presentation of a 
world of minutiae, but I hope it will not fetch the reader to a point 
where he cannot see the forest for the trees (or the leaves either). 
Condensation, too, has deprived me of certain pleasures; I have 
avoided the Grail problem (since SP omits the Grail entirely); 
I have made no effort to reconstruct Kiot's version; I have not 
discussed the relation of Pd to C, etc., etc., giving room only here 
and there to a footnote.^ 

* Several books and articles have appeared since this study was made ready for the 
printer. 

igio. Williams, Mary Rh. Essai sur la composition du roman Gallois de Peredur (Paris; 
pp. i2i). This I have read, and some of its data I should have been glad to incorporate. 
Miss Williams argues for Pd's entire independence of C, but the matter is as yet, it seems to 
me, far from being settled beyond dispute. 

I have not yet had access to: 

1908. MacNeill, Eoin. "Duanire Finn," Irish Texts Society, VII. Texts and translation 
of numerous metrical Lays of Fionn. 

1908. Golther, W. Parzival und der Gral. Munich. 

1909. Baist, G. Parzival und der Gral. Freiburg. 
1909. Lot, F. Bibl. de I'icole des chartes, LXX. 



CHAPTER I 

THE HERO'S FOREST REARING 

References are arranged in groups on the basis of similarity of treatment. 

First Incident: The Father's Marriage 
SP, i-ioo; W, II, 1-1284.^ 
Other versions, wanting. 

Second Incident: The Father's Death 

I. SP, 101-60; PC, 485-940; W, II, 1285-1598. 
II. Pd, 244; Fool, 160-61; Card, I, i — VI, 4; Een, 349. 
III. C, 1607-82; Ty, 1-56. 

Third Incident: The Mother's Flight 

I. SP, 161-92; PC, 941-1223; W, III, 24-59; Pd} 244-45; FoolfVai. b, 
II. Card, VI, 5— VIII, 3. 

III. Fool, 161; Een, 350. 

IV. C, 1607-82. 

Ty lacks this incident, but cf. 11. 57-64. 

Fourth Incident: The Hero's Boyish: Exploits 

, I. SP, 193-228; W, III, 60-126; Pd, 245; Card, VIII, 4— XVI, 8; Fool, 
161-62. 
n. Ty, 65-88. 
III. PC, 1124-82; C, 1 283-13 13. 

The portion of the Perceval legend to be treated in this chapter 
is the forest life^ of the hero — its causes, stages, and results. It 
appears in SP as four incidents : the father's marriage tournament, 
his death tournament, the widow's flight, and the hero's boyish 
exploits. These may be summarized as follows: 

I. King Arthur gave his sister Acheflour in marriage to Perc3rvrelle, the 
most honored knight at court. At the joust in honor of the bridal Percyvelle 
overthrew all the knights (including the Black Knight) who opposed him, 

^ In W there are two marriages, each with its accompanying tournament; the second one 
is discussed here, the first being reserved for discussion in chap. iv. 

' After the Grail part, this has probably been the part of the legend most studied. It 
has furnished the bulk of the evidence in the strongest arguments hitherto offered to show that 
the tales had a common source outside of C. Nutt, Hertz, Schofield, Miss Weston, all have 
used it; Rajna, Golther, Newell, and others have stated their opinions on more or less of it. 
Hence I have to travel over a much-trodden field, though not, I hope, without adding some- 
what to the gatherings of my predecessors. 

14 



THE hero's forest REARING 1 5 

breaking sixty shafts that day. One of the knights overthrown was the Red 
Knight, who in anger swore he would be revenged. II. Later, when Percy- 
velle's son was born, the father gave him his own name, Perceval. A second 
joust was declared; and again PercjrveUe vanquished all comers — until the 
appearance of the Red Knight, at whose hands he was slain. III. The widow, 
hoping to preserve her son's life, fled with him to a wild wood, to rear him where 
he should never hear of tournaments and should have only beasts to play with. 
She took with her only a maiden, a troop of goats, and of her lord's possessions 
merely a Scotch spear [but cf. 1. 410]. IV. When the lad grew old enough to 
play in the woods, she gave him the spear, and told him in reply to his query 
that it was a doughty dart she had found in the forest. Perceval slew birds 
and beasts, and brought them to his mother. He became so skilful that no 
beast could escape him. Thus they remained for fifteen years, the mother 
keeping her son as ignorant as possible. 

Crestien was an accomplished writer, and instead of beginning 
his account with any such family history he chose to open his poem 
with an incident which would capture the attention of his romantic 
audience; so he commenced with that event' in the hero's life which 
was to initiate the series of his adventures, his chance meeting 
with a group of knights in the forest.^ The only passage in C 
that treats of the hero's earlier life in the forest or of how he came 
to be living there is one of about seventy-five Hnes, placed in the 
mouth of the widow when Perceval returns home and tells her he 
has seen knights. And the authenticity of this passage has 
been disputed (see note on p. 25). It runs thus: 

^ Perceval could boast of both father and mother; for his father had been 
an excellent knight, and his mother was daughter to a knight, one of the best 
in the country. ^ But all the knights had suffered hardship after Uther 
Pendragon's time; Perceval's father was wounded, lost his estates, and fell 
into poverty. ^ For safety he fled into this forest (where he had a house), 
being borne hither on a litter when Perceval was scarcely two years old. Perce- 
val had two older brothers, and when it happened that in one day they were 
both slain, the father died of grief. ^ Since then the widow had lived on with 
only her son and their servants in this remote place (1607-82). 

This is the only passage in C that gives any account of the 
father's marriage, or of his death, or of how the widow came to be 

' There was, to be sure, a conventional prologue of the sermonette variety. It is quoted as 
some sixty lines from the Montpelier MS by Potvin, II, 307-8. 
* Potvin's 11. 1 283-1606; this is matter for chap, ii, infra. 



l6 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALtES 

living in the solitary forest. If C was the source, SP has introduced 
a great change. 

The other versions are next to be examined to see whether they 
support C or SP. The incidents will be taken seriatim. 

I. The tournament at the father's marriage appears in only one 
of the other versions, W. The German tale, however, doubles 
the incident, the father (Gahmuret) doing battle for each of his 
two wives. The first, which wins Belakane for him and which 
provides the subject-matter of Book I of W, offers little resemblance 
to this part of SP; but it is much like a later part, and is reserved 
for discussion in chapter IV, infra. The second battle, fought for 
Herzeloyde, presents several similarities: 

Herzeloyde, queen of "Waleis," appointed a great tournament, the victor 
in which was to become her husband and king of her states. Gahmuret arrived 
before Kanvoleis (the capital city) and found the plain covered with the tents 
of many kings and vaHant knights. He armed himself richly and entered the 
tourney. He overthrew many knights, among them four kings, and wherever 
he came he cleared a space about him ; he became known and so much feared 
that when his opponents saw him coming they scattered, crying, "Flee! flee!" 
One opponent, Lahelein, became disgusted at such behavior and rode in anger 
against him, but only to be cast a spear's length out of the saddle. In his 
half-day's battle Gahmuret broke a hundred spear shafts. And none dared 
meet him. He and Herzeloyde were married, and within the year a son — the 
hero — was born to them. 

Shortly before this tournament Gahmuret's brother, Galoes, had been 
slain by Orilus, brother of Lahelein; cf. Ill, 559-62. 

In both SP and W the father fights a marriage tournament, 
and proves victor over all comers. The wife is a queen or sister 
to a king. In both the father breaks many shafts. In both he 
overthrows a powerful knight who later becomes his son's enemy. 
In both he is brought into contact with still another knight (Black 
Night = Tent Lord in SP, and Orilus = Tent Lord in W) who is 
later to play an important part in the life of his son. In both he 
has a son born to him within a year from this tournament. 

II. Of the second incident, the father's death, the circumstances 
are related at length in SP, PC, and W, and briefly in Pd, Card, 
and Fool. 



THE hero's forest REARING 17 

PC. — The father, who was the only survivor of twelve brothers, heard that 
the King of Wales was to give a tournament, and, despite the entreaties of his 
wife and his folk, gathered his followers and went. At first he won great fame, 
but soon he was mortally wounded. News of his death and burial was brought 
to his wife by an abbot. 

W. — The father learned soon after his marriage that his former friend the 
Baruch (CaHph) was beset with enemies. He went to his aid, and was absent 
half a year. Then he was slain treacherously, and buried in Bagdad. When 
the news was brought to Herzeloyde, she fainted and would have died but 
for the ministrations of an old man who was present. 

To Trevrizent Parzival says his father lost his life through his love of 
jousting; cf. IX, 1256-59. 

Pd. — Evrawc, Earl of the North, and father of seven sons, maintained him- 
self principally by tournaments. "As it often befalls those who join in 
encounters and wars, he was slain, and six of his sons likewise." 

Card. — ^At Arthur's court at Camelot lived a noble knight, whom several 
knights murdered because they were jealous of the favors shown him by the 
King. 

Fool. — ^A "ridere," who was father of several children and a brother of the 
King of Eirenn, raised a revolt against the King, and he and all his sons were 
slain in battle. (He had a posthumous son.)^ 

Boyish Exploits of Finn. — Cumhail, Finn's father, was slain in battle. 

Een. — Fionn's father, Cumhail, could be slain "only with his own sword, 
when he was spoilt with drink, and love-making." Black Arcan was insti- 
gated to slay him treacherously while he slept with the daughter of the King 
of Lochlann. 

' The Hero's Father : Name.—No two versions use the same name. Four state the name 
at the outset: SP, Percyvelle; PC, BUocadrans (570, etc.); W, Gahmuret; Pd, Evrawc. A 
fifth states it later in the tale: Card, Dondinello (XXVII). Three, Ty, Fool, and C, mention 
no name. 

Gahmuret is successor to the kingdom of Anjou after the death of Galoes, his brother. 
With "Gahmuret" cf. "roi Ban de Gomeret" in C, 1661 ("disputed passage") and "Gomeret" 
in index of Prose-Tristan. Wolfram makes little attempt to connect Parzival himself with 
Anjou; the hero first speaks of Anjou as belonging to him in the battle with Feirefiz (XV, 361 ff.). 

Gerbert gives the name " Gales li Caus" to the father of Perceval; " Gales li Chaus" occurs 
in Erec, 1726; Bel Inconnu, Hippeau's ed., 41, has "Gales li Cauf" (? = Caus). 

Time. — SP and Card place the father in the time of King Arthur; C and W, in that of 
Uther Pendragon; PC, in that of a "king of Wales"; Fool, in that of a "king of Eirenn"; 
two versions are silent. 

Kin. — (a) Brothers: SP, W, and Fool agree that the father had one brother; PC gives 
him eleven; others are silent. {Perlesvaus gives him a brother, Elinant of Escavalon, who in 
his turn has a son, Alein.) {b) Wife: SP and W describe his marriage at length; others are 
silent. In W the tournament celebrating the marriage occurred in "Waleis"; in SP it was 
probably understood to occur in Wales, (c) Sons: SP, PC, and Ty state positively that he 
had only one child; Card impUes the same; W gives him an older son (Feirefiz) by his heathen 
wife Belakane, but only one by Herzeloyde; Pd, Fool, and C give him others besides the one 
son, though they are slain in combat while the hero is a babe, {d) No daughter is given to the 



1 8 SIR PERCEVAL OE GALLES 

All these versions are agreed upon three large elements: (i) 
the father was a rich and vigorous knight of high rank, (2) who, 
at about the time of the birth of a son, (3) was slain because of his 
devotion to arms. 

Still other agreements may be pointed out between the three 
versions that make much of the father's life. The following 
paragraph, quoted from the Legend of Sir Perceval (I, 72), gives 
Miss Weston's summary of the agreements between PC and W: 

"In both versions the devotion of the father to warlike exercises is insisted 
upon. In both he is overcome with grief at the death in tourney of a brother 
or brothers, which death leaves him the sole surviving member of his family. 
In both he is summoned from home, shortly before the birth of his first 
child, to attend a tourney; in both is there slain, and buried away from home 
with great honours. In both versions an old man plays an important role 
at the moment of breaking the news to the widow; in fact, the version of the 
Parzival where the presence of mind of this personage saves the life of the 
Queen, whom her maidens would have allowed to die in her swoon, requires 
the explanation of the ' Bliocadrans' [=PC], where he has been sent for to break 
the tidings, otherwise what is he doing in the Queen's private apartments ?" 

SP agrees with PC upon a number of points. The father had 
not long been married. He had only one child. At the time 
of the birth of this son he took part in a tournament, in which he 
was slain, after he had fought valiantly. And his burial is 
mentioned. 

father in these versions, but in several a foster-sister to Perceval is mentioned, (e) The hero's 
birth: at the time of the father's death the hero was in SP, PC, and Ty only a few days old; 
in W to be bom later, two weeks after the mother hears of the father's death; in Fool yet to be 
bom; in Card nine months old; in C, disputed passage (1607-1682), over (how much is uncer- 
tain) two years old; in Pd "too young to go to wars." (In Perlesvaus and Didot-P the father 
did not die until after Perceval had left home.) 

The Prose-Tristan knew C, but drew upon another source for Perceval's family history. 
PeUnor, the father, slew King Loth, the father of Gauvain. In revenge Gauvain and his broth- 
ers slew PeUnor. The names and nvimber of PeUnor's sons vary. § 250 (p. 169) gives four — 
Tor, Agloval, Doryan, and Lamorat; § 150 (p. 114) gives Driant (for Doryan), the common 
form; § 217 (p. 156) speaks of "Alain, the brother of Driant"; §215 (p. 155) has "Tor, son 
of Ares, son of Pellynor." Gauvain, Mordret, and Agravain, passing through a forest, encounter 
and slay Driant and Lamorat — two of PeUnor's four (or more) sons, pp. 237-38. Gaheriet 
tells Gauvain (his brother) that Perceval looks well able to avenge the deaths of PeUnor, 
Lamorat, and Driant. 

Morten appears to spring from a version akin to both the Prose-Tristan accovmt and the 
disputed passage in C. (Cf. Miss Weston's translation of Morten, pp. 116 ff.) 

The similarity between the Prose-Tristan and the Card accounts is evident. 



THE hero's forest REARING 1 9 

The points upon which SP agrees with W are more numerous 
and more significant. The father fights in two tournaments, which 
are described. His wife is a queen or a king's sister. He has by 
this marriage a single child. He has one brother. In this tourna- 
ment he makes an enemy who is later to do battle against his son. 
His burial is mentioned. 

Four versions — SP^ W, Card, and Fool — present a revenge 
motive; and the first three show a cycle of interesting events that 
look like reminiscences of older and more closely related forms. 

Observe the parts played by the Red Knight and the Tent Lord: 
(a) In SP the father overthrows the Red Knight and the Black 
Knight (Tent Lord) at the marriage tournament; afterward the 
Red Knight slays the father; later the hero slays the Red Knight 
and overthrows the Black Knight, (b) In W the father overthrows 
Lahelein at the marriage tournament; later Lahelein conquers two 
kingdoms which the hero should have inherited; Lahelein's brother 
is Orilus, the Tent Lord; Orilus has slain Galoes, the father's 
brother; the hero overthrows Orilus. Near the time of the mar- 
riage tournament the father met Ither (the Red Knight) at Seville 
(IX, 1963 ff.), but as a friend. (See a comment in the Conclusion, 
p. 126, infra.) 

Note the place, too, of Gawain: (a) In Card the father is slain 
by Mordarette (Mordret, the brother of Gawain) and his brothers; 
the hero, after he has rescued the Bespelled Lady, wishes to revenge 
his father's death, but King Arthur makes peace between him and 
his enemy, Gawain.^ (b) In SP while the hero is in the midst of 
rescuing the Besieged Lady, and in W after he has rescued her, 
he meets Gawain and does battle with him (neither friend recog- 
nizing the other), though little comes of it; in SP the battle is 
fought in the presence of King Arthur; in W Arthur is not far away, 
and the friends go from the battle to his tent. 

Revenge is prominently mentioned — in SP by King Arthur (561- 
68), in W (III, 359-66) by the mother, in Card in several places. 

Everywhere there is a tendency to bring the hero into relation- 
ship with the king. In Fool the father was brother to the King 

' Card is, of course, not alone in making the hero (equating Carduino with Perceval) and 
Gawain enemies; cf. supra, p. i8, note, and Malory's account. 



20 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

of Eirinn. But when the king was thought of as King Arthur, 
some other arrangement had to be made, for tradition provided 
him with no available brother. W presents the father as brother 
to the King of Anjou and sixth cousin to King Arthur. SP says 
the mother was sister to King Arthur. The Grail group (C, W, 
" continuators ") and Pd make the mother the daughter or the 
sister of the Grail King or his equivalent.' 

To recapitulate for incident II: six versions, though they vary 
much, yet show such significant agreements as to render it nearly 
indubitable that they had a common ancestor; cf. the high stand- 
ing of the father, his death in joust or by the treachery of a knight, 
the survival of one son, the mother's behavior at the father's death, 
the presence of future actors in the tale at or near the time of the 
father's death, and the feud inherited by the son. 

III. The third incident, the flight of the widow, is one of the 
most widely current of all the incidents in the Perceval tale. 
Instead of summarizing' each version, we may state the main 
points upon which they agree. 

Five versions — SP, PC, W, Pd, and Card — relate how: [after 
(i) a rich and vigorous knight of high rank, (2) at about the time 

* The following details concerning the widow and her flight may be noted: 

The Hero's Mother: Name. — Only two of the seven versions give the name: SP, Ache- 
flour; W, Herzeloyde. Rhys says: "Now Herzeloyde is clearly nothing but the Welsh word 
arglwydes, 'lady, domina/ appUed to her in the Welsh original, drawn upon by some one of 
Wolfram's French predecessors in the treatment of the story." — Arth. Leg., p. 123. Golther 
(op. cit., 206, note) considers "Acheflour" a garbUng of Cs "Blancheflour." 

Rank. — ^In SP the mother is sister to King Arthur; in W, queen of two kingdoms, Waleis 
and Norgales; in Pd, a countess; in Card the hero once said that the mother was "of the com- 
mon people," but he was probably misled into that statement; in PC and Fool she is spoken of 
vaguely; in C — disputed passage — she is daughter of "one of the best knights of the country" 
(but see next paragraph). 

Kin. — Ty, Card, and Fool are silent; PC is vague; in three versions she is sister to a king — 

in SP to King Arthur and in C and W to the Grail King (and to the Hermit also) ; in Pd she 

is sister to a nobleman who is the equivalent of the Grail King. In two versions the mother has 

sister: in SP the mother of Gawain; in W the mother of Sigune. In the legend of the 

Grail the mother's relationship is important, and in some tales is considerably expanded. 

The Flight: Two variants could easily arise: the story-teller could have the mother flee 
in haste and go from plenty to poverty; or, remembering her station, he could have her plan 
leisurely and go with retinue and rich stores. 

Provisions. — (a) In SP (but cf. 409-10) and Pd she took a flock of goats, (ft) In PC she 
took silver and gold, over one hundred cars and chariots, much wheat and oats, beeves and 
cows, horses and sheep; in Card, precious stones, pearls, and rich provisions, (c) W is 
silent; in Fool the mother arranges to provide for the foster-mother and the boys; in Fool, 



THE hero's forest REARING 2 1 

of the birth of a son, (3) had been slain through his devotion to 
arms] (4) his widow (the hero's mother) feared she might lose her 
only (living) son (5) if he should learn of arms and knightly deeds, 
(6) and so she determined to rear the lad in ignorance; (7) to 
accomphsh this design, she fled (8) to a forest far from civiliza- 
tion, (9) accompanied (a) by her son alone or (b) by her son and 
a small number of household attendants. A sixth version. Fool 
(Een agreeing), is a variant of the story underlying the five versions: 
the widow, instead of going herself, sent her kitchen wench with the 
babe to a forest, where she supported them; mother and son seem 
never to have met again: but in Fool, var. b, the widow goes with 
her son alone to the forest/ The same story, then, appears in 
six versions. 

These agreements are too numerous and too detailed to have 
been the result of accident. 

var. b, she goes herself in poverty; C is non-committal, but the father had previously fallen 
into "great poverty" (disputed passage). 

Dwelling-place. — In SP, a "wood" — indefinite, the home beside a "well" (11. 6-7); Card, 
in a forest, the most hidden place, a glen; Pd, a desert and unfrequented wilderness; {Ty, a 
forest, ten leagues from any mansion); W, a waste in Soltane (cf. C, 1289, "gaste forest sou- 
taine"); Fool, a forest within walking distance of a town; PC, the mother says she is going 
to visit the shrine of Saint Brandain d'Escoce (1035, 107 1), passes by a castle on the "mer de 
Gale," and goes twelve days' journey into a wood to the "gaste forest"; C, a "manoir" belong- 
ing to the father, in this "foriest gaste," skirting Valdone (1507-10) and less than four days' 
journey from Carduel (1547-51). In SP, W, and Pd, no house is mentioned; in Card the 
mother built a cabin of boughs; in Fool there is a "bothy"; in PC nine men spend fifteen days 
building a house; in C there is a dwelUng that had been built in former days. 

Attendants. — In Card and Fool, var. b (and Ty), the mother is alone with her son in the 
forest; in SP she has a maiden only; in Fool the kitchen wench has her son with her (but cf. 
var. b) ; in W, laborers to support them, and Sigune ( ?) ; in PC, the mother's major-domo and 
his eight sons and four daughters (on the number twelve in PC, cf . Miss Weston, Leg. of SP, 
I, 66 ff.); in C (disputed passage) the father and mother are accompanied by two older sons, 
servants to carry the father's litter, plowmen, etc., and perhaps Perceval's germaine cosine. 

' The Amadan Mor and the Gruagach of the Castle of Gold. — The widow fled to the forest, 
and her son, the Fool, was bom there. (The earlier incidents are not so greatly like the prose 
introduction to Campbell's Fool, but the enchantment part of this tale is much the same as 
Campbell's verse.) 

Toward the end, the Gruagach assures the Fool: "I am your own brother bom and bred"; 
and then the two go to attack four giants. End. — ^J. Curtin, Hero-Tales of Ireland, 140-62. 

Boyish Exploits of Finn. — Cumhail's wife gave birth to Finn, whom two heroines (for 
nurses) took away to rear in a forest. (The remaining exploits, with one exception, are not 
of service to us.) — "The Boyish Exploits of Finn MacCumhail" in Transactions of the Ossianic 
Society, Dublin, 1859. 

Een. — Cumhail's widow bore twins, a daughter and a son. On the night they were born, 
the muime (nurse) of the son fled with him to a desert place, where she reared him till he was 
a stalwart, goodly child. (The remaining adventures are of no service to us.) 



22 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

IV. The fourth incident is the account of the hero's boyish 
exploits. Before leaving his forest home, the youth demonstrates 
his strength and agility in several ways. Four versions — SP, W, Pd, 
and Card — stand fairly close together; Fool agrees as far as it goes; 
and Ty leans in their direction. PC and C are pretty far removed. 

SP. — The mother gave her son a spear^ that had belonged to his father, 
telling him she had found it. With it he shot birds, harts, and hinds, and 
brought them to his mother. No beast might escape him. 

W. — Parzival made a bow and arrows for himself, and shot at birds with 
them. Distressed when one fell slain, he questioned his mother about it, and 
she taught him of God. He returned to the woods to hunt, and became so 
skilled at throwing a dart (gabyloi, source unexplained) that no beast could 
escape him. Many a hart, heavy enough for a mule's burden, he shouldered 
home. 

Pd. — No one brought horses or arms near Peredur, lest he should desire 
them. He diverted himself, throwing sticks and stones in the forest. One 
day he saw two hinds standing near his mother's flock of goats.^ By his 
swiftness he drove them into the goat house, and called his mother and her 
attendants to see. They marveled at his prowess. 

Card. — Carduino, wandering in the forest one day, found two hunting 
spears that hunters had left. To his questions the mother replied they were 
darts that God had sent him; and she taught him their use. After that he 
hunted, and no beast was able to escape him. He and his mother ate the 
flesh and used the skins for clothing. 

Fool. — ^The Fool, walking in the woods with his foster-brother one day, 
saw some deer, and was told that they were creatures upon which were food 
and clothing. By running, he overtook three, and brought them to his foster- 
mother. Shortly afterward he outran a horse. 

Boyish Exploits of Finn. — Finn and the two heroines (his nurses) walking 
in Sleeve Bloom one day saw a herd of wild deer. The heroines said they 
wished they could detain them. Finn ran, caught two bucks, and brought 
them to the hunting booth (hut). After that he hunted constantly (p. 297). 

Ty. — While Tyolet was very young, a fairy^ gave him magic power in 
whistling, by which he was able to overtake and slay any beast whatsoever. 

Certain other items that occur as parts of incidents later in the 
tales may be grouped here. The hero outran a tame horse in SP 
(713 ff.) and Card (XVIII); and a wild horse in SP (325 ff.) and 

'This spear is (by a misreading of "schorte"? cf. 1. 478) called a "Scottes" spear; cf. 
Scotch connections in chap, iv, infra, pp. 90 ff. 

• SP and Pd agree in saying the mother was provided with a flock of goats. Cf . Cuchulain's 
feat, and Rhys, Arth. Leg., 75 ff. 

* With the introduction of the fay into Ty cf. W, I, 1655-70; II, 1134-36. 



THE hero's forest REARING 23 

Fool (162). He outran deer in Fool (i6i) and Pd (245). He showed 
his strength by carrying home heavy animals in SP and PF, by 
lifting an armed man out of the saddle and carrying him in W 
(V, 1244 ff.), by lifting a woman on the point of his spear and carry- 
ing her in SP (859-60), and by carrying his mother on his shoulder 
a long distance in SP (2235)/ 

In all versions the hero is simple and ignorant,^ but quick to 
learn. In SP his mother would teach him "neither nurture nor 
lore"; in Pd he did not know the difference between goats and 
hinds; in Card, having never seen a man, he thought there were 
no other things but the beasts about him; in PC the mother told 
him that he had no home but this, and "since he had very little 
sense," he believed her;^ in Fool, cf. the title; in C and W no 
statement is made here, but he is called "foolish" passim; in Ty, 
no statement."* 

C nowhere makes place for a direct treatment of the Boyish 
Exploits. Consequently, as against the comparative fulness of 
detail in the other versions, C shows meagerness. The few items 
that the French poem does give are generally not stated in direct 
narrative, but appear incidentally in conversation or are wrought, 
indirectly and subordinately, into the presentation of other details. 
The hero had a horse and he knew how to ride from^ the beginning 
(1291-92, 1306, etc.); he had three javelins (1293, etc. — source 
unexplained); and he slew^ birds and beasts (1416-17), and does 

' Cf. also Gerbert {The Library, 88); and W, III, 1254-56. 

' Folk-tales are fond of the apparently simple but really wise young hero; examples need not 
be multiplied. Campbell {Tales, III, 96-97) mentions "Smoroie Mor, or as others have it, 
Sir Moroie Mor, 'a son of King Arthur,' of whom great and strange things are told in Irish 

tradition He was called to his by-name, The fool of the Forest." .... He refers here 

also to Fool and to Canal (not Conall Gulban). 

* In PC the mother says they are the only people in the world, but the presence of the 
major-domo and his twelve children (and their servants?) is known, and might reasonably be 
expected to raise a question in Perceval's mind. Cf. Miss Weston's argument that here the 
author of PC is unskilfully using older material (in which mother and son were really alone), 
Leg. of SP., I, 86 ff. 

* C, W, and Ty tend to minimize the foolishness of the hero. 

* PC agrees; in all other versions he thought of riding only after he had learned of knight- 
hood. Cf. p. 33. 

* The ability to provide food for his mother is certainly insinuated in C but it is plainly 
asserted in SP, W, Card, Ty, and Fool; and one might have expected, a priori, that W, which 
like C and PC makes much of the household servants, the plowing, etc., would have omitted 
this point, just as PC does. 



24 



SIR PERCEVAL OF GAXLES 



and stags (1486-88). Other references to his agility and strength 
are wanting. PC presents nothing here that could not easily have 
been drawn from C. 

The main points of evidence for the four incidents may be 
arranged in a table: 



The father is named early (but in no 
two tales alike) 

He lived in the time of King Ar- 
thur 

or of Uther Pendragon 

He was a favored knight at court . . . 

He had only one brother 

(a) who was a king 

or he was one of several broth- 



ers. 



10. 
II. 
12. 

13- 

14. 

15- 
16. 

17- 
18. 

19. 

20. 
21. 
22. 



He was overcome by grief at the 
death of his brother(s) in 
tourney 

He was sole survivor of his family . . . 

He was vigorous, and devoted to 
warlike exercises 

He left home to go to tourneys 

He fought in two tourneys, which 
are described 



He fought a marriage tournament, 
overthrowing all comers 

A vanquished knight became his 
son's enemy 

Another knight (Tent Lord) 
played a part in his life and 
later in his son's life 

His wife was a royal lady 



II 



Within a year a son was born to 
him 

Who was his wife's only son 

And his only son 

or he had more than one son 

At time of son's birth father en- 
tered tourney(s) 

He was slain in tournament 

or treacherously 

or in battle 

He was slain at time of son's birth . . 

or before the son was born 

He was slain away from home 

His burial is mentioned 

An old man assists the widow 



SP 
SP 



SP 
SP 



SP 
SP 

SP 
SP 



SP 
SP 



SP 
SP 
SP 



SP 
SP 



SP 
SP 



W 



w 

w 
w 



w 
w 

w 
w 

w 



w 
w 



w 
w 



w 
w 

w 

w 

w 



w 
w 
w 
w 



PC 



PC 



PC 
PC 

PC 
PC 



PC 
PC 



PC 
PC 



PC 

PC 
PC 
PC 



Pd 



Pd 
Pd 



Pd 
Pd 

Pd 



Card 
Card 



Card 
Card 



Card 
(Card?) 



Fool 
Fool 



Fool 



Fool 
{Fool) 

Fool 

Fool 
(Fool?) 



THE HERO S FOREST REARING 



25 



23. A revenge motif is brought into 

the tale 

24. But the revenge is absorbed into 

another incident and slurred 
over 

Ill 

25. The widow fears her son will be 

slain 

26. To prevent his death he must be 

reared in a forest far from men . 

27. Where he may never hear of 

knightly life 

28. So she determines to flee with him 

or to send him with a servant 

29. She flees with few or no servants . . . 
or with rich stores of provisions .... 

IV 

30. The son becomes vigorous, and 

shows: 

(a) Expertness, by slaying birds, 
deer, etc 

(b) Agility, by outrunning deer 

wild horses 

tame horses 

(c) Strength, by carrying carcasses 
human beings 



SP 
SP 

SP 

SP 

SP 
SP 

SP 



SP 

SP 
SP 
SP 
SP 



W 
W 

w 

w 

w 
w 

iv 



w 



w 
w 



PC 

PC 

PC 
PC 

PC 



Pd 

Pd 

Pd 
Pd 



Pd 



Card 
Card 

Card 

Card 

Card 
Card 



Card 
(Card) 



Card 



Card 
(Card) 



(Fool?) 
(Fool) 

Fool 
Fool 



; Fool 

' var.& 

Fool 

(Fool) 



Fool 
Fool 

Fool 



(C) 

(C) 

C 



From the evidence presented the argument may be stated 
succinctly as follows: 

The marriage tournament occurs only in SP and W. C, then, 
cannot be the source of it. SP and W are not so much alike as 
to appear to have an immediate common source, but they have 
certain significant common possessions that lead us to suspect 
that they had somewhere more remotely an ancestor in common. 

For the next two incidents — the father's death and the widow's 
flight — the six versions, SP, W, PC, Pd, Card, and Fool, show so 
many strains in common that they must revert to a common 
ancestor. But C is so considerably different that it cannot have 
been that ancestor: i.e., the passage summarized (C, 1607-82) 
cannot have been. The passage stands so much alone in the 
tradition that its authenticity has been disputed.' If the lines are 

'It may be designated the "disputed passage." Though it bears some resemblance to 
the Prose-Tristan account (see p. i8, note), and perhaps is all the more to be suspected there- 
fore, it differs so far from all other accounts of the father and of the mother's flight that one stu- 



26 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

not by Crestien, they do not weaken any part of my argument. 
If they are by Crestien, they greatly strengthen it. If we omit the 
disputed passage from consideration for a moment, the remainder 
of C 3delds to a close scrutiny the following hints to serve as a basis 
for an account — and most of these are presented in conversation or 
as mere accessories to other details: (a) the mother was a widow 
(1288), (b) and she dwelt in a waste, soKtary forest (i289£f.); 
(c) among her attendants were farm laborers (1512 ff.), (d) and 
perhaps Perceval's foster cousin (TF's Sigune) (4774-75); (e) the 
mother wished to hide her son from people (1532 ff.); (/) and she 
wished to hide from him any knowledge of knighthood (1532, 1602 
ff.). How far an account may incorporate these hints and yet be 
unlike the other versions is shown by the disputed passage. 

dent at least who held that C was the source of all the other versions was forced into looking 
upon it as an interpolation by an vmskilled hand. W. W. Newell, in his rendering of a portion 
of C, wrote: "Here omitted [is] a passage (lines 1609-1689, sic), in which Perceval's mother is 

made to give a statement in regard to the history of her slain husband The passage, 

intended to emphasize the woes of the widow, seems to be characterized by afiectation, and 
obviously to be the work of a later hand. Wolfram and other successors of Crestien seem to 
have used a text in which the lady was represented as being a widow at the time of her flight." — 
King Arthur and the Table Round (Boston, 1897), II, 252. 

There are other indications that the passage is an interpolation: (a) statements concern- 
ing the mother's kin here contradict statements in the rest of C; (b) Perceval's inattention here 
(following his mother's remarks) is a mere parallel to that toward ELing Arthur (2160-65); 
(c) the style is like that of an interpolator — prolix, etc.; (d) the account of the father's wounds 
looks Hke a contamination from the story of the lame Fisher King: 

Vostre peres, si nel saves, Mais il fu en une batalle 

Fu parmi les gambes navr^s' Navres et mehagnies sans falle, 

Si qu'il en mehagna del cors; Si que puis aidier ne se pot; 

Qu'il fu navres d'vm gaverlot 

Vostre peres ce manoir ot Parmi les hances ambesdeus, 

Ici en ceste foriest gaste; S'en est encor si angoisseus 

Ne pot fuir, mais en grant haste Qu'il ne puet sor ceval monter; 

En Utiere aporter s'en fist, Mais, quant il se viut deporter 

Car allors ne sot u fuist. U d'aucvm deduit entremetre, 

Si se fet en xine nef metre, 
The mother is speaking to her son (1629-31; Si va pescier al amengon; .... 

1644-48). 

Perceval's giermaine cosine is speaking 
to him just after his first visit to the 
Grail castle (4687-97). 

If the disputed passage was written by Crestien, it must have been known to Wolfram and to 
the author of PC; yet it was (if known) cast aside and dehberately contradicted by these 
two writers; and it was accepted by none of the other of Crestien's successors except perhaps 
the Icelandic redactor. As the case stands, the text of C has not been established; but so far 
as I am able to learn, this passage is not wanting in any MS that preserves the contiguous lines. 
Miss Weston in her study of the MSS (Leg. of SP) mentions no instance; Potvin prints it from 
the Mons MS, and indicates its presence (cf. his notes) in 12577 and MpL, and its prose equiva- 
lent in the Print of 1530. 

»"Var.: Les hanches" (Potvin's note). 



THE HERO S FOREST REARING 27 

It is evident, then, that the scholars who hold the theory that 
it is useless to seek for any source behind Crestien's poem must 
argue, as a corollary, that PC — an anonymous writer's relatively 
obscure preface (cf. p. 2, supra) — was the source for an incident 
(the widow's flight) as widely known as any incident in the popular 
poem (C) to which it (PC) was prefixed. 

But the difficulty of considering any one of the six versions as 
the immediate source of the others is evident. Literary history 
and the brevity of their accounts put Pd, Card, and Fool out of 
court. The late date of the composition (or translation) of SP 
and the general facts of literary history discredit the theory that 
the English poem can have been the source of the French and Ger- 
man poems. Literary history makes it difficult, too, to see how W 
could have been the source of an English and a French poem.* 
And there are at least five reasons for believing that PC is not 
the source : (a) it does not furnish enough of the materials possessed 
in common; (6) SP agrees with IF in a larger number of points 
than with PC; (c) it is highly probable that W was written first ;^ 
{d) it is highly improbable that Wolfram is responsible for the 
introduction of the Angevin history; (e) Wolfram suggests the 
source of his tale, a poem written by ''Kiot."^ 

The evidence of this chapter is strong. And while it may not 
be considered strong enough to amount to proof of, it certainly 

' Or of two French poems if (with Gaston Paris) we consider SP a translation from the 
French. 

' Several things point to- a comparatively late date for the composition of PC: had it 
been written early it would have been incorporated into more of the MSS; apparently it was 
unknown to the continuators (1190-1225 a.d.), Wauchier contradicting it in his jiccounit. of the 
father's brothers, and Manessier and Gerbert in their accounts of the father's children. 

Miss Weston offers the suggestion that the immediate source of PC was the "book" 
Crestien speaks of as his own source. Of the two MSS in which PC occurs, one is preserved at 
Mons; and the other (Brit. Mus.) contains a drawing of the arms of the house of Flanders; 
both MSS, then, being connected with the Netherlands, "may have come in contact with the 
book, or what remained of the book, owned by Count PhiUp, and .... a later copyist, 
aware that a connection of some sort existed between the poems, supplemented what was con- 
sidered as a defect in Chretien's work from the earUer version." — Leg. of SP, 97, and 57-58. 

' Wolfram's vigorous assertions concerning Crestien and Kiot cannot be explained away 
by the "mere formula" hypothesis; and the gratuitous assumption of some modern scholars 
that Wolfram simply lied is to me repugnant. The account of the father is one of the places 



fc 



',^ 



^, 






28 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

goes far in the direction of establishing, these conclusions : that the 
different versions had for the parts we have been studying a common 
source; that C, with or without the disputed passage (1607-82), 
cannot have been the source; and that C and PC together, with 
chance thrown in, do not satisfactorily account for the agreements 
we have found. 

Whether we may believe that there ever was any single written 
version that was the source of all the others, or whether we must 
revert to a body of oral tradition, does not yet appear. 

in which Wolfram diverges most widely from Crestien (Wolfram writes 3,300 lines before he 
reaches the birth of the hero; cf. Books I-II, against C, 1607-82); and, consequently, it may 
properly be considered one of his main justifications for the assertion (XVI, 1201-11) that 
Crestien did not tell the tale correctly. For other assertions, cf. VIII, 560-70, 992; IX, 605-82; 
XV, 1270; XVI, 550. For other points of divergence cf. Nutt, Siud., 25, 261-63; Hertz, 
Parzival, 418, 505-6. I was glad to find that the opinion I reached independently, that the 
account of the father is one of Wolfram's chief objections to C, is also the opinion of such investi- 
gators as Miss Weston (Leg. of SP, I, 73) and Hertz. 



CHAPTER II 
THE HERO'S AWKWARD ATTEMPTS TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS 

Fifth Incident: The Mother's Religious Instruction 

I. SP, 229-56; Card, IX, 5— X, 8. 

II. W, III, 98-116; PC, 1230-54. 

Other versions, wanting (but cf. implications). 

Sixth Incident: The Hero's Meeting with Knights in the Forest 

A. The Meeting (no groups) 

SP, 257-76; C, 1283-1348; W, III, 127-42; Pd, 24s; Ty, 85-119; 
Card, XVII. 
Fool, wanting. 

B. The Error (no groups) 

SP, 277-304; w, III, 143-208; c, 1349-93; P(^, 245. 

Ty, Card, Fool, wanting. 

C. News of Knighthood 

I. SP, 305-20. 
II. C, 1394-1554; W, III, 209-92; Pd, 245-46. 

III. Ty^ 120-246. 

IV. Fool, 162. 
Card, wanting. 

D. The Return Home 

I. (a) SP, 321-88; {h) Ty, 247-68; Card, XVIII-XXI. 

II. (a) C, 1555-1703; ^, III, 293-328; (&) P(/, 246. 

(Cf. F<?o/, 162). 

Seventh Incident: The Mother's Advice 

I. SP, 389-416; Card, XXVII-XXIX; Ty, 269-74. 

II. W, III, 339-68. 

III. C, 1704-92; Pd, 246-47. 

Eighth Incident: The Adventure at the Tent 
A. Departure from Home 

I. SP, 417-32; Ty, 275-80; Card (lacuna). 

II. Pd, 247. 

III. C, 1793-1828; W, III, 369-401. 

IV. Fool, 162. 

29 



30 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

B. The Visit to the Tent 

I. SP, 433-80. 
II. W, III, 402-501; C, 1829-1972; Pd, 247. 

Ty, Card, wanting (but cf. final chapter, infra, pp. 119). 

C. The Return of the Tent Lord 

SP, wanting. 

C, 1973-2025; W, III, 502-658; Pd, 247-48. 

The English poem next presents four incidents which constitute 
a clearly bounded group, of which the purpose is to demonstrate — 
by showing the hero's awkwardness in following directions — that 
trait of foolishness which is made prominent^ in his early life. 
The incidents themselves are among the most interesting in the 
whole tale, and parallels in other versions are numerous; yet, 
notwithstanding, the grounds upon which to build conclusions con- 
cerning the relationship of the versions are scanty. The vagueness 
results from the fact that one of the chief events, the Tent incident, 
is part of a story (or parts of two stories melted together) to be 
discussed later, and its significance does not become clear until the 
rest of the stories are before the reader. Consequently the sub- 
stance of this chapter will be compressed as much as possible. 

In SP the group is composed of two symmetrically developed 
portions. In each portion the mother gives her son directions, 
he faces a situation in which he attempts to follow them, and a 
blunder is the result, but through the blunder his fortunes are 
advanced. 

The account is as follows: 

V. When Perceval had been fifteen years in the forest, his mother gave 
him Instruction concerning God, to Whom she bade him pray; and he went 
into the forest to seek God. VI. There he met three knights, and, never hav- 
ing seen such, he thought them the God he sought; he began to adore them, 
but they told him they were only knights. Perceval returned to his mother 
and, to her great distress, told her of the adventure and of his newly formed 
purpose to go and become a knight. VII. She gave him Advice as to how he 
should conduct himself. VIII. He left home to go to King Arthur's court; 
on the way he came to a hall, entered, helped himself to food and wine he 

' See p. 23, supra. 



THE hero's attempts TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS 



31 



found on the table, went into another room where he found a lady asleep, and 
took her ring, leaving his own in its place; thence he departed to seek the 
King. 

The following table (parts of which will be expanded later) 
shows the main items : 



The mother gives her son In- 
struction concerning God . 
the devil 



VI 

A. The hero meets knights in the 
forest: 

three^ 

a fourth later 

five 



for 



many 

the Stag-Knight^ 

a horse (metonymy 

kmght)3 

By error he thinks they are : 

the devil 

angels. 

God 

From or by them he learns of 

knighthood 

D. He returns and tells his mother 

of the meeting 



B. 



C. 



VII 

The mother gives her son Advice 
not contaminated from 

Instruction 

contaminated from In- 
struction 



VIII 

A. Mother and son are separated 

Mother dies 

or lives on 

B. The hero finds a Tent (or 

haU)4 

By error he thinks it a monas- 
tery 

He encounters the Tent Lady 
He departs for court 



SP 



SP 



SP 
SP 
SP 

SP 



SP 
SP 
SP 



SP 
SP 



W 
W 



W 
W 



W 
W 
W 

w 
w 



w 
w 



w 



w 
w 



Card 



Card 



Card 
Card 

Card 



{Card) 
Card 



Card 



Ty 



Ty 
Ty 

Ty 

(Ty) 
Ty 



Ty 



Fool 



Fool 



{Fool) 



C 



C 

c 
c 

c 

c 



c 
c 



c 
c 
c 



Pd 



Pd 

Pd 

Pd 



Pd 



Pd 
Pd 



Pd 

Pd 
Pd 
Pd 



PC^ 



» PC ceases before the meeting with the knights. 

' Miss Weston (Leg. of SP, I, 86) suggests the Instruction may have concerned the Trinity. 
» Summaries given below. 

* I shall use "Tent" for the place where Perceval met the Lady, though chap, v will lead us to believe 
that SP's hall (palace) is the older form. 



32 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

Of the two symmetrical portions, the first centers about the 
meeting between Perceval and the knights in the forest; it begins 
with the mother's religipus Instruction, and ends with her grief 
when her son tells her he has seen knights. The second centers 
about Perceval's behavior in the hall; it begins with the mother's 
Advice, and ends with the hero's departure from the hall. Four 
versions tell all (or nearly all) of the two stories, falling into two sets: 
{a) SP and IF, {h) C and Pd. Four other versions tell portions of 
the story: PC, Ty, Card, and Fool. 

Several comments may be passed on the first portion. It 
will be observed that in C {Pd concurring^) the reHgious Instruction 
is not developed into an incident and placed previous to the hero's 
meeting with the knights in the forest, as it is in SP, W, and (to 
an extent) Card. The substance of this teaching, nevertheless, 
appears in C, for by Crestien's literary cleverness Perceval's remarks 
are made to show that his mother has instructed him concerning 
devils (1326 ff.), angels (1350 ff.), and God (1357 ff.); and when 
mother and son meet, after he has seen the knights, she speaks of 
*' angels, .... who slay all they meet" (1592-94), and of God 
^^Who made heaven and earth, and placed men and women there" 
(1768-70). We may decide either that Crestien refined upon what 
was the source of the other versions, or that his poem is their source. 
But the presumption that C is the source of the other versions 
involves the supposition that Crestien's followers found his version 
too delicately literary, and that three of them (or four, if PC's 
partial account be considered) extracted his hints and developed 
them into an explanatory incident, which they (the three) then 
prefixed to a more or less cut-up edition of his account of the meet- 
ing with the knights. SP and Card lack entirely the devil and the 
angels; Pd knows not the devil and has forgotten God; out of W 
the angels have fallen; and the only thing PC catches is the devil. 

As regards the number and names of the forest knights, SP and 
Pd present a noteworthy similarity in that the knights were three 
in number, and that the names of two of them were Gawain and 

' Pd: One day when Peredur and his mother saw three knights pass along the forest, 
he asked her what they were. She answered that they were angels. Peredur then said he would 

go and become an angel with them. He went to meet them When he retvimed to his 

mother, he said that the knights were not angels but knights; and his mother swooned. 



THE hero's attempts TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS 33 

Ewain^ (Owain). Opposed to them stands C with five knights, of 
whom the leader is quite youthful.^ Wolfram appears to have 
combined the two accounts; he adopts the leader of C, gives him 
a name, and then adds him to the three (now unnamed) knights 
of the SP-Pd type.3 

In SP Perceval threatens the life of Kay, who is said to be the 
third knight. Nothing similar in this scene occurs in C, W, or 
Pd;^ but in Fool at exactly the same place relatively the Fool slays 
out of hand the man (his foster brother) who has just told him of 
knightly Hfe. In Ty, furthermore, the hero was trying to slay the 
stag that becomes the Stag-Knight and teaches him concerning 
knighthood. In SP Kay's life is saved by the sudden and singular 
intervention of a buck. (Compare Ty^s, Stag-Knight.) These 
resemblances may be entirely the result of chance; but I incline 
to the behef that if we were more familiar with the pedigree of 
each tale, we should find them due to consanguinity. 

In all versions except C the close connection between the horse 
and knightly life is stressed at this point. ^ In C Perceval knows all 
along how to ride. In W and Pd, although horses (work-horses) 
are a part of the mother's establishment, the hero knows nothing 
of riding; when about to leave home, he has in Pd to make a saddle, 
and in W to ask his mother to give him a horse. Carduino sees 

' Ewayne fy tz Asoure {SP, 261) out of Fitz. . <^ . . z Ur(ien) >Fitz as-Ur(ien) ? Ewayne 
was son of Urien: cf. Erec, 1706, "Yvains, li fiz Uriien;" Yvain, 1018-19, 1818, 2122, 3631, 
"fiz au roi Uriien"; C, 9518 ff.; Potvin I, pp. 24, etc.; Morte Arthoure, 2066 {E.E.T.S., No. 8, 
1865), "Then syr Ewayne syr Fitz Uriene full enkerly rydez"; etc. 

' In C the leader was probably not thought of as Gawain, for he is made to say (1500-1502) ; 

"N'a mie encor. V. jors entiers 
Que tout cest harnois me dona 
Li rois Artus ki m'adouba." 

Gawain, however, was not at court when Perceval came there, though his squire Yones was; 
cf . 11. 5464 flf. 

' In Prose Tristan (Leseth, pp. 239 ff., §§ 308 f.), Agloval is the informant. The mother 
lives in her "tower" with Perceval, and there they weep for the death of Pelinor, Lamorat, 
and Driant. Agloval alone meets Perceval (his brother) in the forest and tells him of knight- 
hood. Tristan crosses another version through C (cf. p. 18, note), ignorant of or ignoring PC. 
If C 1607-82 is an interpolation, it might easily have arisen out of an account like this passage 
in Tristan (perhaps poorly understood) . Perceval's two older brothers, Lamorat and Driant, 
were slain on the same day (Tristan, p. 237, § 307). Whether the "disputed passage" of C 
could have been the source for the Pelinor-Lot feud of Tristan need not be considered here. 

" Cf. further comment in chap, v, p. 99. 

^ PC ceases before this point is reached; it asserts that Perceval knows how to ride. 



34 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

horses for the first time when Arthur and his party come into the 
forest to hunt, and upon this occasion he outruns their horses. 
In SP, when Perceval is on his way home after meeting the knights, 
he captures a wild mare, rides it home (because the knights had 
ridden on such beasts), and later rides it when he leaves home. 
The Great Fool sees a wild horse, hears then for the first time of 
knighthood, catches the horse, and rides away from home on it. 

The second of the two symmetrical portions is that of the 
mother's Advice and the son's adventure at the Tent. Six versions 
have the first incident, the Advice;^ only four of them contain the 
Tent incident. The summaries of the two incidents are as follows : 

VII. THE ADVICE GIVEN BY THE MOTHER TO HER SON 

SP.—i. He should— (a) be of "mesure," (b) be "fond to be free," (c) 
take his hood off to a knight. 2. To his question she replied, a knight may be 
known by the fur in his hood. 3. At parting she gave him a ring of recogni- 
tion — a ring by which she could know him when they should meet again. 

W. — I. He should — (a) cross no dark ford, (b) be courteous, (c) greet 
people, (d) learn of a wise man, (e) take a girl's ring and her greeting if it could 
be won, (/) kiss a girl if she would permit such. 2. He was told that Lahelein 
was his enemy, having taken his lands. 

Card. — I. He should — (a) serve King Arthur as he would his mother, 
(b) and obey him. 2. He was told to revenge his father's death. 

Ty. — I. He was told to go to Eang Arthur. 2. He was given Advice — to 
keep company with none but those of gentle birth. 

C. — I. He should — (a) aid women, (6) if he courted one, serve without 
annoying her; (c) it is an honor to kiss a girl if she be willing, and he should 
demand no more than she was willing to grant; (d) he should take her ring, 
belt, or purse if she would give it; (e) he should ask a man his name; (/) go 
with gentlemen, for they do not deceive; (g) and pray in churches and mon- 
asteries. 2. In answer to questions he was told that (a) a church is a place 
where one makes sacrifice of Him Who made heaven and earth, and placed 
men and women there; and (b) a monastery is a place where relics are kept, 
and where is sacrificed the body of Jesus, Who saves souls from hell.^ 

' The bestowal of advice is not an uncommon thing, even in the romances, but I have found 
help in no other form of it I have met with. In C Gornemans (2831-80) and the Hermit Uncle 
(7813-48) offer the hero advice; in W Gurnemanz (III, 1625 ff.) does, but the uncle, Trev- 
rizent (V and IX), does not; in Pd (253) one uncle does. Cf., further, C, 7766 ff.; Wauchier, 
263055.; Morien, pp. 42-43 (Miss Weston's transl.); Erec, 1793-99, etc. 

' Prefatory to the advice in C the mother says — rather inconsistently: You are going to 
King Arthur, and you will get arms; I fear you may be slain; but you will be a knight soon if 
it please God, and I would have you be one (1704-26). 



THE hero's attempts TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS 35 

Pd. — I. He was told to go to Arthur's court. 2. He should — {a) pray at 
each church, {b) if he saw meat and drink, and none offered them to him, take 
what he might need, {c) help anyone crying for ^id, especially a woman, {d) 
if he saw a jewel, take it and give it to another, for thus he would obtain praise, 
and (e) pay court to a fair woman whether she wished it or not. 

VIII. THE ADVENTURE AT THE TENT 

SP. — I. Arrival — Perceval entered a hall. ' 2. Recollection — Seeing there 
a table set, a fire, a manger, and corn, he recalled that his mother had said, 
"Be of 'mesure.'" 3. Meal — He parted the corn in half for his mare, and 
ate half of the things on the table, leaving the other half; how could he be more 
of "mesure"? — ^he wished to be "free." 4. The Tent Lady — He passed to 
another chamber, found a Lady asleep, and said he would take a token of her. 
5. The Ring — He kissed her, took a ring off her finger, and placed his mother's 
ring in its stead. 6. Departure — ^Then he left. 

W. — I. Arrival — Parzival came to a Tent and entered. 2. Tent Lady — 
He saw a Lady asleep, and spied a ring on her finger. 3. The Ring — His 
grasp waked her, but her struggles were useless; he kissed her, and took her 
ring and her brooch. 4. Meal — He said he was hungry; the Lady pointed out 
bread, wine, and two game birds, saying he might eat them; he ate and drank 
his fill. 5. Recollection — The Lady bade him return her ring and brooch, 
and flee from her husband's wrath; the hero, replying that he feared not her 
husband but would go if his presence annoyed her, kissed her as she lay on her 
couch, and bade God bless her, "So my mother taught me." 6. Departure — 
Then he rode away. 

C. — I. Arrival — Perceval came to a Tent, which he took for a monastery, 
and entered. 2. The Tent Lady — There he found a Lady asleep, but the 
whinnying of his horse waked her. 3. Recollection — He saluted her, saying 
his mother had bidden him salute maidens wherever he found them; he also 
said he would kiss her, for his mother had told him to do so. 4. The Ring — 
He kissed her rudely twenty times, saw her ring, and took it, saying his mother 
bade him take it. 5. Meal — ^Then he saw food in a corner of the Tent, wine 
and three pasties; he ate one pasty and part of another, bidding the Lady 
finish it, for then a whole one would still be left; he ate what he wished and 
covered the rest. 6. Departure — Leaving the Tent, he rode on. 

Pd. — I. Arrival — Peredur came before a Tent, took it for a church, and 
said a Paternoster to it. 2. The Tent Lady — In the open door of the Tent sat 
the Lady, wearing a frontlet and a finger ring; she welcomed him when he 
entered. 3. Recollection — Seeing two flasks of wine, two loaves of bread, 
and boar's flesh,^ he said: "My mother told me wherever I saw meat and drink, 
to take it." 4. Meal — The Lady replied: "Take it and welcome"; he took 
half of the meat and liquor for himself, and left half for the Lady. 5. The 

' Loth has: "des tranches de cochon de lait" (p. 50). 



36 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

Ring — After eating, he bent on his knee before the Lady and said : " My mother 
bade me take a jewel wherever I found one"; she repHed : "Do so, my soul"; 
so he took her ring. 6. Departure — Then he mounted and left. 

In SP the Tent Lord is not referred to until Perceval meets the Tent Lady 
the second time. In C, W, and Pd we are told here of his return to the Tent 
and of his anger and jealousy at finding that a visitor had been there in his 
absence. 

Concerning the mother's religious Instruction of her son, it has 
been pointed out that such an incident appears to underlie the C 
account. If we grant that C is the source, we must presume that 
the authors of SP, W, and, to a lesser degree, Card and PC con- 
curred in elaborating Crestien's hints into a separate incident and 
in giving it the same position in the tale. The hero's behavior 
toward the forest knights is perhaps sufficient to account for such 
a development in SP, W, PC; but Card must be explained in some 
other way. If, on the other hand, we consider that Crestien drew 
upon a source more like SP and W, we find that he did two things: 
he chose to weave in the Instruction subordinately rather than to 
use it as a separate incident, and then he combined a more advanced 
kind of instruction with the Advice. Pd follows C in this respect. 
That certain items of the Advice of C and Pd are due to contamina- 
tion from the Instruction incident looks the more probable when it 
is remembered that these items lead the hero (in C and Pd only) 
into his second Error, the supposition that the Tent is a monastery, 
which is nothing but an echo of the first Error of mistaking the 
forest knights for God. 

The hero's departure from home occurs, in all versions except 
C, immediately after he learns of knighthood or early the 
next morning; in C he waits three days. The lingering is 
due merely, I think, to a disposition in the literary group — C 
and W — to dwell tenderly upon the mother's great love and her 
suffering. W^'s poetic treatment of the mother's grief had the 
same origin. 

The mother's fate is different in two different groups. In the 
Grail group she is said to fall dead of grief at her son's departure; 
in what I may call the folk-tale group she either lives on to rejoin 
her son when he has achieved greatness, or nothing more is said of 



THE hero's attempts TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS 37 

her at all. This difference I think I can explain, if the reader will 
permit me merely to state here what I believe I shall show pretty 
conclusively in the end. The Grail group made the change. Some 
author (whether Crestien or an earlier one) decided to insert the 
Grail story into the Perceval tale. Now, in the story of the visit 
to the Grail castle one element that was fixed was the hero's failure 
to ask the important question concerning the meaning of it all when 
he saw pass before him the Grail and other objects.' This early 
author conceived it to be a part of his duty to furnish an adequate 
reason for this failure; he sought it in the punishment of a sin; 
and for the sin he chose to make the mother die as a consequence 
of her son's departure.'' The motivation of the mother's death 
is undoubtedly poor. It is a contradiction to the whole fate ele- 
ment of the tale to make it a sinful thing for the hero to leave the 
forest to go seek his fortune. Wolfram (or his authority) felt 
the insufficiency of this unconsciously committed sin, but instead 
of getting out of the difficulty, he v/ent farther into it, for he changed 
the character of the Red Knight (Ither), made him a relative of 
Parzival, and then counted it a sin for Parzival to slay him 
(IX, 1279 ff.). The folk- tale group — ^keeping its events always 
in the shadow of the pillar of cloud which is foreordination and 
compelling fate — slurs over the mother's unhappiness, leaves her 
well after her son's departure, and finds no place for sin and its 
punishment. 

The two incidents of the Advice and the visit to the Tent are now 
linked closely together in the Perceval tale.^ Some of the ways in 

' That the failure was a significant and integral part of the original Grail story appears 
certain. It is found in the accounts of Gawain's visit to the castle. 

* Cf. the assertions of the giermaine cosine ( = Sigune) and the Hermit Uncle. The same 
impulse caused the author to insert Gornemans' advice to avoid many questions (C, 2831 ff.)- 

' The scribe of SP thought of them as easily separable. At the conclusion of st. 27, or 
between 11. 432 and 433 — i.e., between the conclusion of Perceval's life in the forest and the 
beginning of the incident of the Tent Lady — there is inserted the expression, "Here is a Fytt 
of Percy velle of Galles." Nothing similar occurs elsewhere in SP. Cf. the similar single 
occurrence in Sir Degrevant, st. 22; cf. also Awntyrs of Arthur, sts. 20, 38; Sir Antadace (Rob- 
son), 17, 43; Avowing of Arthur, 30, 48; Eglamour, 30, 54, 77. In Pd Lady Guest's printed 
version of the Welsh shows three breaks: the first. Vol. I, p. 238, occurs at just the same place 
at which SP inserts "Fytt"; the other two, pp. 268, 282, set off a series of incidents that are 
a story within themselves. In the translation, Nutt's reprint (pp. 251, 271, 281) and the 
edition of 1838-49 do not indicate the first, but both mark the others. The Welsh of Y Mdbino- 



38 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

which an item of the Advice is bound to an item in the Tent adven- 
ture, and in which a portion in one version is complemented by a 
portion in another, are of sufficient interest to be pointed out. In 
two versions, C and W, the hero is advised to kiss a lady if he have 
opportunity, and in three versions he kisses the Tent Lady against 
her will. The omission of the kiss in Pd is probably the result of 
accident, for its presence in Pd^s source is implied by the advice to 
court a lady whether she wished it or not; and so far as she was 
tested, Pd^s Tent Lady was oddly complaisant. An exchange of 
rings appears only in SP. There is no mention of a ring in the 
Advice of SP; there is such in C, W, and Pd. In the last the advice 
is, where you see a jewel, take it off and give it to another person. 
In all four versions the hero bears away the Lady's ring. It is 
possible that the Advice in Pd may have arisen through a misunder- 
standing of an original in which, as in SP, an exchange of rings 
occurred. It is possible, too, if for a moment the hypothesis be 
granted that the author of SP had before him a manuscript of C, 
that the English account may have arisen from a misreading of 
C's statement (19 15-16) that the hero took the Lady's ring off her 
finger and placed it on his own into Perceval took the Lady's ring 
off her finger and placed his own on it; after which we are to pre- 
sume that the Englishman inserted the account of the mother's 
ring to provide for the "his own." But C's statement will not 
explain the Advice of Pd; nor will it account for the importance 
attached to the brooch in W. Another interesting crossing is 
connected with the item in 5P's Advice, ''Be of mesure." Perce- 
val recalls this advice when he comes to the Tent, interprets it to 
mean that he is to take only half of what he sees, and follows it 
strictly, as regards food and drink. No other version contains 
anything similar in its Advice. In W he makes no such division, 
but "eats his fill"; in Pd, however, he divides the meat and drink, 
taking half and leaving half; and in C the equable division occurs 
in a blurred way (see the second clause of C 5 on p. 35, supra), as if 
the writer had preserved in a half-buried fashion a matter from his 

gion Cymreig (Liverpool, 1880) is fully paragraphed. The Text of the Mabinogion (Rhys and 
Evans, Oxford, 1887) has only two breaks in its Pd (pp. 220, 232), the last tw'o of Lady Guest's 
text. 



THE HERO S ATTEMPTS TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS 39 

source which he did not regard as significant and which — ^perhaps 
unconsciously — he altered/ The Advice in Pd to take food if no 
one offers it is almost meaningless (though referred to) for the Tent 
incident in Pd, where the Lady bids the hero eat as much as he 
wishes; but it is apposite to the Tent incident in SP, where through- 
out his visit no one is awake to offer him food.^ 

It looks as if the Perceval tale developed out of a simpler tale 
in which, measured by the evidence of Card and Fool, the mother 
gave her son some elementary religious Instruction, the son shortly 
afterward learned accidentally of some phase of knightly life, 
returned to tell his mother of his determination to go out into the 
world, and the mother gave him simple Advice which was intended 
to make his life easier and safer. Whether or not such was the 
evolution cannot be told as yet. 

The discussion is continued in chapter V. 

Cf. 11. 1945-49: 

Et dist: "Pucele, cist paste 
Ne seront hui par moi use; 
Ven^s mangier, il sont moult bien; 
• Ass^s ara cascuns del suen; 
S'en i remanra .1. entiers." 

And the contradiction(?), 1953-54: 

Et cil manga tant com lui plot 
Et but tant ke ass6s en ot, etc. 

* The hero's behavior at another meal may be compared; a reflection of the equable divi- 
sion appears in two accounts {W and Pd) of the first meal at the besieged castle (cf. chap, iv), 
but not in C ox SP. 

C. — I. Blancheflur said, We have naught but a few crumbs [from a pious imcle], a 
flask of wine, and a buck. 2. Tables were spread, and the castle folk sat down and ate with 
reUsh. 3. After supper some went to bed, others went on guard. 4. Perceval was cared for, 
given a bed, sheets, and a pillow, and he soon fell asleep. 

W. — I. Two uncles told Condwiraniur they were giving her twenty -four loaves of bread, 
six shoulders and hams, sixteen cheeses, and four casks of wine. 2 . All within the city received 
food, because — 3. Parzival advised that the food be shared around, though it gave only a 
morsel about. 4. Then he went to rest. 

Pd. — I. Two nuns brought in a flask of wine and six loaves of bread. 2. The household 
went to eat. 3. The Lady wished to give more of the food and liquor to Peredur than to 
anyone else. 4. But he said he would share the food; so he gave an equal portion of bread to 
each, and a cupful of wine. 5. A chamber was prepared and he went to sleep. 

Compare further Yvain, 1046-54; and Ywaine and Gawin, 577-60: 

A capon rosted broght sho sone, 
A clene klath, and brede tharone. 
And a pot with riche wine, 
And a pece to fil it yne. 



CHAPTER III 
THE RED KNIGHT-WITCH-UNCLE STORY 
Ninth Incident: The Arrival at Court 

A. The Hero Enters the Palace 

I. {a) SP, 481-500; {h) C, 2026-2132. 
II. Ty, 277-88. 

in. w, III, 779-992. 

IV. Pd, 248-49; Fool, 161-62. 

Card, lacuna. Fool ceases to be similar after this point. 

B. Conversation with the King 

I. SP, 501-600; Ty, 289-320; Card, XXX, i— XXXHI, 4. 

II. (a) C, 2133-2255; W, III, 993-1119; (b) Pd (substitute — with 

Kay), 249. 
Ty and Card begin to be quite different after this. 

Tenth Incident: A Knight Insults the King 

I. SP, 601-56. 
II. Pd, 248. 
III. C, 2057-2159; W, III, 872-936. 

Eleventh Incident: The Hero Avenges the Insult 

I. SP, 675-820. 

II. C, 2256-2399; W,lll, 1127-1292; Pd, 249-51. 

Twelfth Incident: The Encounter with a Witch 
1. SP, 821-68. 

II. G, Potvin VI, 183-86 {The Library, January 1904, pp. 72-74). 

III. Pd, 273-74. 

Thirteenth Incident: The Hero Entertained by Relatives 

A. The Relatives' Enemies 

I. SP, 869-948. 

II. (a) G, 181-83, 187-88; (b) Pd, 273-74. 

III. C, 2497-2892; W, III, 1355-1898; Pd, 251-53. 

B. News of the Besieged Lady's Distress 

I. SP, 949-1056. 

II. C, 2892-3250; W, IV, 1-499; P(^, 256-58. 

40 



THE RED KNIGHT- WITCH-UNCLE STORY 4 1 

Modern Folk-Tales^ Containing the Incidents of: 

I. Insult, Relatives, Hag Battle, Relatives, Insulter's Punishment 

Red Sh, with its variants, 451-93; Ransom, Champion, Hookedy. 
II. Insult, Insulter's Punishment, Hag, Relatives 
Conall, 249-51, 286-94; Fear Dubh, Alba. 

III. Relatives, Hag Battle, Relatives 

Faolan, Manus, Big Men, Fionn and Bran, Dough, Kil Arthur, 
Mananaun. 

IV. Fragments 

Birth of Fin, Lawn D. 

The present chapter will be devoted to five incidents embracing 
some 575 lines, rather more than one-fourth of the poem, in the 
middle of SP. The incidents are : the Arrival of the Hero at Court, 
the Insult Offered the King, the Death of the Insulter, the Battle 
with the Witch, and the Hero's Meeting with Relatives. As 
usual, after a comparison between SP and C, other tales will be 
introduced into the discussion to see what information may be 
garnered concerning the ancestry of the English poem. For results 
we shall uncover four conditions upon which we may rest further 
study with a reasonable degree of certainty that they are facts: 
{a) certain odd details show that SP and C are closely related; 

' I have brought together in each chapter whatever material I could find that bears a 
strong likeness to SP. Then I have endeavored to weigh and to use each piece of material 
scientifically. If I vmderstand Zimmer aright (in his review of Nutt's "Studies," Goett. gel. 
Anz. [1890], No. 12, pp. 488 ff.), it is his opinion that the modem folk-tales (Nos. 11 ff, of the 
list on pp. 4-6, supra) cannot possibly be used "scientifically" in the study of my problem, 
since the antecedents of these tales cannot be traced before the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries, 
and since French romances were known to the Gaels before that time — since the romances, 
i.e., may have been the source of the tales. The opinion is sound in part (and a very good 
one to keep in memory), but, as I think, only in part. The nature of the evidence itself 
offered by the tales may help determine their credibility. If the tales demonstrate the 
existence of a pretty clearly defined series of events; if the most reasonable belief is that 
this series underUes Crestien's poem, and if, nevertheless, the poem cannot possibly have 
been the source for the "series of events"; if writers almost contemporary with Crestien lend 
additional evidence for the existence of that "series" and yet cannot have been the source of 
it; if, finally, SP can be shown to possess more of the "series" than C, cannot be accounted 
for as sprung from C plus the other French accounts, and cannot itself have been the source 
of the series; then the evidence of the tales may not be neglected by the student who means 
to do scientific work. See, also, the comment of A. C. L. Brown, "The Knight of the Lion," 
Pub. Mod. Lang. Assn., XX, p. 700, n. 2. 

For substance the tales are certainly available evidence. 

For priority and for dates evidence must be sought elsewhere. 

The accounts of a hag ("caillech") mentioned by Zimmer (same article, 508-9) have not, 
so far as I can determine, any bearing on the accounts of the carlin of chap. iii. 



42 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

(b) each of these two versions contains incidents not to be found in 
the other; (c) comparison of them and other tales makes it possible 
to reconstruct much of what must have been the common source; 
and (d) such a reconstruction develops a ''story" that had a sepa- 
rate existence before it was incorporated into the Perceval tale. 
To summarize SP: 

IX. From the hall ( = Tent), Perceval journeyed on till he came to the 
palace of King Arthur. He rode into the hall and came so close to the dais^ 
that his horse kissed the forehead of the King, who was eating; he demanded 
that he be made a knight immediately. The King was reminded of his knight 
Syr Percyvelle, of his death, and of the prophecy that only the son^ could avenge 
the father. Perceval was greeted so kindly that he fastened his mare and sat 
down to table, X. Before he began to eat, a knight in red armor rode in upon 
a red steed, insulted the company, grasped the gold cup that was before the 
King, drank the wine, and rode away bearing ofif the cup. The King grieved 
that he had no one to revenge the insult, for the Red Knight had acted in this 
way for five years. The hero said he would overthrow the Red Knight and 
return the cup if the King would make him a knight. Arthur agreed, and 
Perceval followed the Red Knight. XL Overtaking the Red Knight, Perceval 
slew him with a cast of his dart. Then he desired the red armor, but was not 

* For lists of references to similar feats, cf. Child's Ballads, notes on "King Estmere," 
II, 51, and the additions of Kittredge, II, 510; III, 508. 

' Asked who he is, Perceval, not knowing his name, can only reply to the King that he is 
"his own mother's child"; see 11. 506, 1094^ and cf. Hertz's note, Parzival, p. 444; a similar 
expression does not occur in C at this place. C says only that when Perceval returned home 
after meeting the forest knights, his mother called him "biaus filz" more than a hvmdred times 
(1567); similarly, PC, 1231. Cf. Heinzel, Ueber Wolfram's Parzival, 34. W, III, 722, has 
"bon fils, cher fils, beau fils"; similarly, j. Titurel, 4387, 4. Cf. similar expressions in Bel 
Inconnu, 115 (ed. Hippfeau); Libeaus Desconus, 26, 66 (Kaluza); Chevalier au cygne (Hippeau) 
I» 3S; Chevalier a deux espees (Forster, 1877), 10773; Heinzel, Gralroman, 24, note i; P. Paris, 
Romans d. I. Table Round, III, 27; Nutt, Studies, 153; Miss Weston, Leg. of SP, I, 68 £f. 

Cf. further: W, XIV, 1246, Arthur refers to Beaucorps as "My sister's son"; XIV, 1303, 
Beaucorps is called "Lot's child," and VI, 1 291-1393, Gawain's brother; XIV, 1450, Arthur 
calls Gawain "My sister's son"; cf. also I, 1165. Cf. the kinship between Perceval and Arthur 
in SP, discussed in chap, i, ante; and between Perceval and Gawain in SP, 1441, 1457, discussed 
in chap, v, infra. The Beautiful Unknown, in Libeaus D, is Gawain's son; Malory's Gareth 
is' Gawain's brother. 

Perceval, as the name of a knight, occurs first, in romance, in Erec (only once, 1. 1526); 
it appears four times in Cliges (4828, 4831, 4847, 4851); Crestien does not mention it in his 
Yvain or Chevalier de la charrette. In the legend of Perceval the hero is usually supposed to 
be long in ignorance of his own name. C first mentions it in 1. 4751, where the hero states it, 
although he had presumably never heard it. PC (739-42) makes a mystery of it, saying that 
when the hero was christened, his name was pronounced so low that no one heard it. I cannot 
see that any special significance attaches to Crestien's repression of his hero's name, since such 
a repression was no unusual device in his poems; cf . the name Enid in Erec, Laudine in Yvain, 
and Lancelot in Chevalier da la charrette. 



THE RED KNIGHT-WITCH-UNCLE STORY 43 

able to unlace it; so he built a fire to burn the body out. Gawain^ arrived, 
stripped the armor off, and placed it upon Perceval. That hero, disdaining to 
return to the King, sent the cup by Gawain, tossed the dead knight's body upon 
the fire, and rode on. XII. Next morning he met a Witch, the mother of the 
Red Knight. She thought him her son, and said that she had been told falsely 
that he was dead, and that even if he had been dead she could have revived 
his body. Perceval, rejoicing that he had burned the body, slew the witch with 
her son's own spear, and bore her body to the fire upon which the Red Knight 
had been burned. XIII. Then he rode on until he overtook ten knights — 
his Uncle and nine cousins — who fled from him, thinking him their enemy, the 
Red Knight. After they learned their mistake, they entertained Perceval 
in their castle. While they were at table, a messenger brought news of the 
Besieged Lady's distress, and Perceval determined to go to her rescue. He 
started, accompanied by three of his cousins, but after a short time he sent them 
back, and rode on alone. 

In C the account, arranged in six incidents, runs thus : 

^ Perceval left the Tent, and next met a charcoal-burner, who directed 
him to court. Approaching, he saw issue from the gate a knight clad in red 
armor and bearing a cup in his hand. Perceval said he would demand the red 
armor from the King. The Red Knight stopped him to send a message of 
defiance to Arthur. The hero, little regarding the message, passed and came 
to where the King was seated at meat. Arthur was lost in thought. Perceval, 
riding in, asked a boy which was the King. ^ Then he addressed the King, 
who made no response. Perceval said, "This King makes no knights"; 
and in disgust turned his horse's head, which accidentally knocked off the 
King's head-gear. Thereupon the King roused and spoke. ^ He told of the 
coming of the Red Knight, the insult, and the spilling of wine on the Queen; 
and said. Unless God helped him he would die. Perceval paid no attention 
to the acccount, but demanded that Arthur make him a knight. Arthur 
promised he would do so; then Perceval demanded the red armor. ^ Kex 
sneered at the hero, and injured a damsel and a fool who did honor to Perceval. 
^ Perceval, unheeding Kex, went out to seek the Red Knight, and Yones 
followed, in order to bring back the news. Perceval came to the Knight, 

' Perceval's assistant is: in SP, Gawain, the leader of the forest knights; in Pd, the leader 
of the forest knights; in C, Yones, esquire of Gawain (C, 7064 ff.; Wauchier, 11102); in W, 
Iwanet, the queen's servant (III, 1197-99). The disposition seems strong to connect Gawain 
with the hero's entry into life. W makes Iwanet, not Gawain's squire, but servant to the 
queen; but it is a romance commonplace that Gawain was a ladies' knight, in particular the 
queen's knight: cf. Awntyrs of Arthur, st. i; Avowing of Arthur; Gaw. and Green Knight; C, 
9546 fE., W, XII, 1274-1313, XIII, 542 flf.; Merlin (ed. Sommer), chap, xxvi, p. 343; Miss 
Weston's Leg. of Gaw., pp. 75 flf., and Leg. of Lane, pp. 117-18, 95. 

In C we are told later that Gawain was away from court at the time; cf. p. 33, n. 2. 

Gawain was the assistant in other tales, going to the aid of the hero in Ty and in its cognate 
in the Dutch Lanzelet. 



44 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

demanded the armor, and was struck over the shoulders by the Knight's 
lance for his pains. With his gaverlot he smote the Knight through the eye 
to the back of the neck, and slew him. Yones arrived when Perceval was 
having trouble to loose the red armor, and assisted him to don it, Perceval 
bade Yones bear the cup to the King and messages to the damsel and the fool 
whom Kex had struck. ^ He rode on till he reached the castle of Gornemans; 
there he was instructed in the use of arms by him, received one night's enter- 
tainment, and was knighted by Gornemans next morning. He left to seek 
his mother, and came next, by accident, to the castle of the Besieged Lady 
(Blancheflur). 

The two poems show great similarity of substance. But they 
manifest, also, certain considerable differences. For one thing 
the poets used different devices for presenting their materials before 
the reader (hearer). The writer of SP narrates in his own person 
the coming of the Red Knight to court, and the insult to the King. 
Crestien, in a sort of second-hand way, places the account in the 
mouth of the King.^ This difference, in its turn, rendered neces- 
sary another one: in C Perceval, before reaching the King's castle, 
meets the Knight; in SP there is no such meeting. For a second 
thing, the two poems are different in contents. All of the fourth 
incident and part of the fifth of SP are entirely imrepresented in C. 
Nothing of Kex's insulting behavior to those who honor Perceval 
and its consequences as told in C appears in SP. 

Although C does not make the hero's entrance into court a 
separate incident, while SP does, it is interesting to note that the 
two versions possess in common two striking points that do not 
appear in any other versions. The first is an evidence of boorish- 
ness in the hero's manners — he rides so near to King Arthur that his 
horse's head kisses the King's forehead or displaces his majesty's 
head-dress. The second is the King's pensiveness — ^in C, because 
he is meditating on the Red Knight's insult; in SP, because, when 
he looks on Perceval, he is reminded of the knight Syr Percyvelle, 
whom he had lost fifteen years before. 

Crestien's device of presenting indirectly the Red Knight's 
visit and insult (by making the King recount them) is to be con- 

' Cf. use of same device in the "disputed passage," chap. i. The author of Pd says (direct 
narrative) that before Peredur reached court a knight had been there and insulted the King, 
etc. Wolfram, "improving" upon C, has the Red Knight recapitulate the affair when he meets 
Perceval about to enter the palace. 



THE RED KNIGHT-WITCH-UNCLE STORY 45 

sidered, I think, an attempt at refinement; for the reader's 
(hearer's) attention is thereby centered upon the King's grief 
rather than the Knight's roughness, and a rough scene seems less 
rough if told as having happened than if presented as occurring. 
It is easy to conceive of Crestien's refining a source of the SF type. 
It is less easy, if C be considered the source, to account for the 
stepping-down process from C's refinement to SP^s rudeness. 

The incident of the Refl Knight's death furnishes three interest- 
ing points for mention here : (a) The redness of the Knight's armor 
is insisted on by all the versions — SP, C, W, Pd. The equipment 
is not stated in our cycle to have possessed magic qualities;^ but 
in C the behavior of Gornemans when Perceval comes to his castle 
appears vaguely to hint at something extraordinary in it;^ and 
Wolfram (III, 1355-66) dwells upon the (supernatural ?) power of the 
horse. ^ (b) The red armor came early to be intimately associated 
with Perceval, who was himself then sometimes referred to as the 
Red Knight. But for Perceval to acquire it, it was necessary for 
the Red Knight to die. Hence Crestien found it impossible to 
save the life of that knight, though his hero does not slay any other 
person; and Crestien offers a sort of retroactive excuse for the Red 
Knight's death by making it (through Gornemans' advice) seem 
due to Perceval's want of courtly instruction."* (c) The third and 
most significant point is the burning of the Red Knight's body. 
The English writer thought it a very important matter, for he 
reverts to it twice : the Witch says she could have revived the dead 
body if she had found it; and the Uncle expresses joy when he 
learns it has been burnt. There is nothing in C out of which the 

' SP and Pd, however, assert that the Knight was a magician. 

' Cf . 11. 2559-71; 2576-77; 2727-30; in the first passage Gornemans shows curiosity 
about Perceval's arms; in the second, about his horse; in the third — 

"Dont, alons huimais a I'ostel, 
Fait li preudom qu'il n'i a tel; 
Et vous arez, qui qu'il anuit, 
Ostel sans vilonie anuit." 

And the hero in Red Sh (cf. later) says he desires the arms of the Insulter because they 
are the best in the world, but he does not get them. 

' Cf. Sir Eglamour, 610-15 ("Thornton Romances," 121 ff.), in which a damsel gives the 
hero a red horse of such virtue that a man may never be slain while riding it. In C the Knight 
had dismounted before he struck Perceval; in SP, Pd, and, apparently, W he had not. 

* In W Gurnemanz was not pleased to hear of Ither's death (III, 1619-20). 



46 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

SP account could easily have grown, but there are some lines now 
of little purport that become significant on the hypothesis that they 
are remnants of a burning-the-body incident somewhere in the 
sources of C. Perceval is speaking to Yones: 

Je quidoie de vostre roi 
Qu'il m'eust ces armes donees; 
Ains auroie par carbonees 
Trestout escarbellie^ le mort, 
Que nule des armes enport. 

—2326-30. 

The three incidents — the arrival of Perceval at court, the insult 
of the Red Knight, and the overthrow of the Red Knight — could 
conceivably, without any overwhelming difficulty, so far as our 
discussion has yet shown, have come from C into SP. We should 
then have to say that the visit to the Uncle was so far altered as 
to leave the merest fact of a visit as the only remnant. But there 
remains the incident of the Witch in SP, which has no possible 
origin in C. And the discussion that follows will show that it is 
not an episode, to be looked on as something standing alone because 
invented by the author or borrowed and lugged into his tale. 
But it is part of "a, story." The other incidents in SP that belong 
with it, as parts of the same story, are the insult of the Red Knight, 
his death, and Perceval's visit with his Uncle; and the whole may 
be designated the Red Knight- Witch-Uncle story. From the vari- 
ants that we possess, it is possible to reconstruct much of the story 
in its more primitive form. It is the basis for this portion of C, 
but since SP preserves more of the earlier form than C does, it is 
certain that C is not the source for this part of SP. 

Before beginning a discussion of this ''story," let me point out 
that after the arrival of the hero at court Ty, Card, and Fool cease 
to be like SP and C; their heroes go to aid a woman, Perceval 
goes to avenge the insult to the King. Summaries of Ty, Card, 
and Fool follow: 

Ty. — Having kissed his mother farewell, Tyolet went over mountains 
and valleys till he came to the court of the King. Arthur was seated at meat 
when he rode up to the dais. Tyolet spoke not. Arthur bade him descend 

' Most MSS have "esbraone"; cf. Miss Weston, Leg. of SP, I, 79. 



THE RED KNIGHT-WITCH-UNCLE STORY 47 

and eat, and tell what he sought, who he was, and what his name was. Tyolet 
said he wished to be made a knight, and gave his name, and said his mother 
was the widow of the forest. Arthur was pleased, and Tyolet sat down to 
eat. Soon a damsel came in seeking aid for herself (275-323). 

Card. — (Lacuna.) Arthur heard Carduino, took him by the hand, and asked 
his name, father, mother, and country. Carduino did not know who his father 
was; his mother was "d'una vil giente"; and Carduino had come to serve 
Arthur truly. The King bade the barons serve him. He washed and went 
to the table. The barons marveled at his size. Presently came in a beautiful 
damsel to seek the King's aid for her mistress (xxx-xxxiii) . 

Fool. — The Fool went in wonder to see the palace of his father's brother. 
In a dispute he slew the King's son. Then he went where the King was. 
''Creud orm," said the Fool. The King asked who he was. He repHed that 
he was the fool of the forest and could make a fool of the King. The King 
said his adviser had done that when he persuaded him (King) to leave the 
widow aHve when he slew his (King's) brother. The King then went with the 
Fool on'an adventure to rescue a beautiful woman (162-63). 

The tales to be studied for the purpose of reconstructing the 
Red Knight- Witch-Uncle story are SP, C, W, Pd, Gerbert's "con- 
tinuation," and some modern folk-tales.^ 

Next to be set down are summaries of the tales concerned,^ 
and afterward will come the discussion of them. Four incidents 
appear, though they do not always occur in the same order.^ To 
enable the reader to follow more readily, the summaries are arranged 
in two sets: SP, Pd (a and b), G, Red Sh, and Conall are first set 
forth by incident, the sequence of the tale being disregarded where 
necessary; the second set includes the rest of the modern folk- 
tales, summarized each according to its own sequence. The reader 
not familiar with Red Sh will get a good idea of it by reading the 
summary of Ransom (pp. 55 ff., infra), a variant of it. 

' Nutt (Stud., esp. pp. 165-69) pointed out many resemblances, using SP, Pd, G, Red Sh, 
and Conall. He was intent upon finding the Grail, however, and my study leads me to believe 
the Grail entered the legend late. 

' Nothing will be gained by repetition or elaboration of the summary of C. W, in outline, 
is much Uke C: the chief variations are that (a) the account of the Red Knight's insult is placed 
in the mouth of the Knight himself; (b) the Knight's character is exalted and praised; (c) the 
two persons who honor Parzival at court are dignified, named, and given greater importance; 
(d) Gurnemanz has three sons (now dead) and a daughter instead of the two attendant youths 
of C; he offers the daughter in marriage to Parzival, and she is refused. The significance of 
the variations will be discussed in the comments. 

' The sentences are numbered to indicate the original sequence, and also for use in the table 
on p. 55, below. 



48 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

A. THE INSULT TO THE KING 

SP. — I. The King was among his courtiers, the hero seated near him. 
2. The Red Knight (a magician) entered, made sport of the company, drank 
the wine in the King's cup, took the cup, and departed. 3. The King lamented 
the want of a champion, and spoke of the Knight's former insults. 4. Perceval 
undertook the adventure. 5. It had been predicted that he would avenge 
the death of his father, slain by the Red Knight. 

Pd(a) — I. King Arthur was in his court, but the hero was not present. 
2. The Red Knight (a magician) entered, dashed wine in the Queen's face, 
struck her a violent blow in the face, gave a general challenge, took the goblet, 
and departed. 3. Shortly afterward the hero arrived at court and was honored 
by two persons, whom Kay thereupon insulted. 4. He heard from Kay of 
the Red Knight's visit and insult, and was bidden to go and procure the Red 
Knight's armor. 5. He departed to do so. 6. By prophecy it appeared that 
he was to be the best knight in the world. 

Pd(b)^ — 13. The Empress (the lady who before this time had given Pere- 
dur a magic stone; cf. below) was holding a great marriage tournament. 14. 
One day when the hero was seated beside her, a Black Man entered, bearing 
a goblet of wine; he dropped upon one knee and besought the Empress to 
bestow the goblet on no one who would not fight with him for it. 15. The 
hero requested the cup, drank the wine, and used the cup to pay a debt. 16. 
The scene was repeated for a second and a third man. 17. The hero slept 
that night. 18. Next day he armed himself, went to the meadow, and slew 
the three men. 

G. — (No equivalent. The scene has already been related in C.) 

Red Sh. — I. The King of Eirinn was seated among his nobles, the hero 
being near by. 2. A personage (a magician) drew near, spoke to (insulted?) 
the company, struck the King in the face, knocking out three teeth, which he 
took, and departed. 3. Red Shield and two other knights undertook to avenge 
the insult. 

Red Sh variants.^ Variant a. — The king was out hunting with his attend- 
ants, his son being near by. A rider on a black horse came, struck the king 
with his fist, knocked out one of his teeth, and took it away with him. The 
king's son vowed to recover the tooth, and set off on his travels (Mrs. Mac- 
Tavish's version, Campbell's Tales, II, 484). 

Variant b. — [The King was situated as in Red Sh (?), but instead of the 
rider on the black horse] a head came in a flame of fire, and another head came 

' Pd{b) is Peredur from the incident of the Black Oppressor to the marriage of Peredur to 
the Empress (Nutt's ed., pp. 271-81). It has in its time served several uses: Rhys {Arthurian 
Legend) used it in an efifort to show that Perceval and Iwain are well-nigh two names for the 
same hero; Schofield {Harv. Stud, and Notes, IV) made it an important link in his endeavor to 
reconstruct the earlier form of the Beautiful-Unknown tale. In neither of these two cases, it 
seems to me, was this portion of Pd used properly. For Pd(b) 1-12 see below. 

' The variants are given by Campbell in his notes. 



THE RED KNIGHT-WITCH-UNCLE STORY 49 

singing. A fist was struck on the door of the mouth of the king, and a tooth 

was knocked out The head did this three years after each other,^ 

and then it went home (MacDonald in Tales, II, 485). 

Conall. — [A partially similar incident.] i. The King was at table with 
guests, the hero being present. 2. An enemy entered, drew his fist, and struck 
the King between the mouth and the nose, and drove out three front teeth, 

which he caught on the back of his fist 3. The hero avenged the 

insult, though not with death (Campbell's Tales, III, 249). 

B. THE INSULTER's DEATH^ 

SP. — 6. The hero left court, encountered and slew the Red Knight, donned 
the red armor, and rode on. 

C, W, and Pd{a) are, except for the burning of the Knight's body, much 
like SP; there are no points needing elaboration. 

Pd(b). — Cf. 18 above and i below. 

' This statement lends support to, though it does not explain, a difl&cult passage in SP, 
in which Arthur asserts: 

"Fyve 5eres hase he [Red Knight] thus gane, 
And my coupes fro me tane, 
And my gude knyghte slayne, 

Mene calde syr Percyvelle; 
Sythene takene hase he three," etc. (633-37). 

Cf. also items 16 and 18 under Pd(b) above; and the time allusions in Faolan (seven years); 
Manus (seven years); Fionn and Bran. 

With the prophecy recalled by Arthur, that Perceval should avenge his father's death 
(by inference, slay the Red Knight and the Witch), cf. the prediction in Pd{h) (p. 276, 1. 9) 
that Peredur should slay the Addanc; in G that only Perceval could slay the Hag; and in 
various tales summarized below that only the hero could accomplish the adventure. 

In the Scotch tales it is the King's teeth (or tooth) that the insulter takes away; when the 
hero recovers them, he places them in a cup of wine or water which he gives to the King, and as 
soon as the monarch drinks, the teeth fly back into their proper places. In SP, C, W, and Pd it 
is the King's drinking-cup that the Red Knight bears away. The Scotch form is, I think, the 
more primitive; perhaps the SP form rose through an effort at refinement. 

' In SP the hero burnt the Knight's corpse and, later, that of the Witch. A connection has 
been suggested between the Mother's Advice and the lines: 

"He sayd, 'My moder bad me, 
Whenne my dart solde brokene be, 
Owte of the irene brenne the tree, 

Now es me fyre gnede!'" (749-52). 

Cf. Nutt, Stud., p. 149. I have been unable to discover any connection with the Advice, and 
incline rather to see in them the poet's ex post facto invention for the purpose of justifying the 
burning of the Knight's body (cf. also SP, 1679 ff.). 

Wolfram makes the Red Knight the nephew of Uther Pendragon (III, 877-78), best of 
knights, and near kinsman to Parzival. 

The romancers were rather fond of referring to a knight as a "Red Knight": cf. Erec, 
5367-6410, esp. 5898 ff.; Perlesvaus (Potvin, I, 20-21), a "Knight of the Red Shield," who was 
slain by Perlesvaus before he left his forest home; Wauchier, 23124 ff.; Jacob von Maerlant's 
Roman von Torec (21 21 ff.), where a "Red Knight" is overthrown by Torec; Malory, Morie 
D' Arthur, Gareth and "Ironsyde" (Sommer's ed., I, 2345.); etc. 



50 SIR PERCEVAL OE GALLES 

Red Sh. — Cf. ii and 19 below. 

G. — Wanting. 

Conall. — The hero overthrew but did not slay the Insulter. 

C AND D. THE WITCH AND THE RELATIVES INCIDENTS 

SP . — 7. The hero rode all night [but in the morning was back in the same 
place]. 8. He met a Witch, who recognized his horse and arms, and thought 
he was the Red Knight, her son. 9. She addressed the hero, who remained 
quiet: ''Had you been slain and your arms taken off, I could have revived 
you." 10. Then the hero knew that burning the Knight's body had saved 
his own life. 11. Taking the Witch upon [her son's] spear, he cast her body 
into the fire that had burned the son's body. 12. After a short ride, he 
approached ten men, who fled from him, thinking him the Red Knight. 13. 
They were the hero's Uncle and his nine sons. 14. When they learned he 
was not the Red Knight, they explained to him the Knight's enmity, and 
then all went to the Uncle's hall, where the hero was entertained. 15. While 
they were at table, a messenger arrived, announcing the pHght of the Besieged 
Lady (Luf amour in SP; Blancheflur in C). 16. The hero decided to go to 
the rescue. 17. Three of his cousins started off to accompany him, but he soon 
sent them home, apparently without reason, and he went on alone. 

G. — I. One day Perceval met four Young Men leaving a battlefield and 
carrying Gornumant, their father, badly wounded. 2. After being entertained 
by Gornumant, and hearing his story, the hero vowed to avenge him. 3. 
But he learned that the enemies slain by day were resuscitated at night by a 
hideous Hag. 

4. After slaying his adopted enemies, the hero lay down upon the battle- 
field to sleep. 5. At midnight he saw the Hag coming — 

Ele arsist ausi come une esche 
Se on boutast en li le fu. 

6. She had two little barrels of magic ointment which would revive the dead. 

7. After she had restored four enemies to life, the hero mounted and rode at her. 

8. She recognized him and knew that only he could slay her. 9. She explained 
to him that he could never find the Grail so long as she lived, that the balm 
would revive the dead, and that she made war upon Gornumant at the com- 
mand of the King of the Waste City because Gornumant had knighted Perceval. 
10. He struck off her head, next had his horse slain under him, and was wounded, 
but slew the resuscitated knights. 11. He revived his horse, and then the 
best of his enemies, only to slay him again. 12. He cured himself, and went 
to the castle and cured Gornumant. 13. Promising to return to Blancheflur 
(niece of Gornumant) and marry her, he departed. 

Pd{h). — I. After slaying the Black Oppressor, Peredur rode to the palace 
of the Sons of the King of Tortures, entered, and found only women. 2. 
Presently a charger arrived bearing a corpse in the saddle. 3. A woman took 



THE RED KNIGHT- WITCH-UNCLE STORY 5 1 

the corpse, bathed it in warm water, placed balsam on it, and the man rose 
up whole. 4. This was repeated for two other men. 5. Explanation was 
made that all three were slain once every day by the "Addanc." 

6. Next morning the three Young Men started off to battle. 7. The hero 
begged to accompany them, but was told that if he were slain there would be 
no one to revive him. 8. He attempted, nevertheless, to follow them, but 
they had disappeared. 9. He met a beautiful woman, who accosted him, 
explained about the Addanc (a mysterious cave-dweller), and gave him a 
magic stone by means of which to overcome the Addanc — on condition that 
he should love her supremely, and seek her ^'toward India." [An incident^ 
omitted.] 10. The hero arrived at the cave, used his stone, pierced the Addanc 
with his spear, and cut off the Addanc's head. 11. As he left the cave, he met 
the three Young Men, who said there was a prediction that he would slay 
"that monster." 12. The hero refused the sister they offered him in marriage, 
gave them the Addanc's head, and departed. [In two incidents the hero 
befriended Etlym, a knight who wore red armor and rode a red horse. Then 
he attended the marriage tournament of the Empress: cf. Pd{h) 13, above.] 

Red Sh. — [The hero traveled seeking the Insulter. He leaped over a circle 
of fire, and entered an island. He found on a hillside a beautiful woman with 
the head of a great sleeping youth on her knee. It was hard to wake the 
youth, but (according to prophecy) the hero roused him. The youth called 
the hero by his name (Red Sh) — "It is this day that thou has the name"; 
and they fought till the hero swept the head off the other. Then he took the 
Lady to the ship ; and when he went back into the island, his treacherous com- 
panions sailed away with the Lady (458-61).] 4. After wandering for some 
time in the island, the hero drew near a castle, or town. 5. He saw three 
Young Men coming heavily, wearily, tired from a battlefield. 6. They saluted, 
and all four entered the town. 7. That night they slept. 8. Next morning 
the three Young Men began to arm themselves. 9. They were the hero's 
foster brothers; and they told him that for a year and a day they had warred 
against the Son of Darkness, Son of Dimness, and a hundred people, but every 
enemy slain one day was alive the next. 10. The hero wished to go to battle 
with them, but learned they were under a spell of such a nature that if he 
fought he must fight alone against all the enemies. 

II. He went to the battlefield, and when he had killed the Son and all his 
hundred people, being wounded, he lay down on the field to sleep for the night. 
12. Waked by a great noise [and light?] from the seashore, he saw coming 
a great, toothy Carlin. 13. She bent over two corpses, placed her finger in 
their mouths, and restored them to life. 14. Next she placed her finger in 
the mouth of the hero, who with a bite severed it; she kicked him a long way 
off, and leaned over another. 15. The hero took "her son's short spear" 

' The omitted incident bears some resemblance to the brachet incident in the "Lay of the 
Great Fool" and that in the Wauchier "Continuation." On this resemblance cf. Schofield, 
StiAd., 171 flf. 



52 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

and struck off her head. i6. He rested till he heard his three foster brothers 
weeping and seeking him. 17. They said that if they had the Carlin's vessel 
of balm, they could soon cure him. 18. He directed them to the CarHn's body, 
and when they had fetched the balm and anointed him, he rose cured. 19. 
The next day the hero slew the personage who had insulted the King. 

Red Sh Variants. Variant a (cont.). — The ELing's son went to three houses, 
where he found three sisters, each of whom gave him a pair of magic shoes, which 
returned home when they had carried him seven years' journey in one day. The 
last sister was young and lovely ; she lowered him over a rock in a basket to fight 
her brother, who was a giant with three heads. He cut off a head each day; 
fired a pistol shot at the foot of the rock as a signal to be hauled up each even- 
ing, for the giant never fought after sunset; and he was cured with a magic 
balsam by the lady each night, and went out fresh each morning. The giant's 
head leaped on as often as it was cut off, but an eagle came over the prince 
and told him to hold the sword on the neck tiU the marrow froze, which he 
did, and the giant was killed. He took the spoil from a castle, found the 
King's tooth in a drawer, returned home with the beautiful lady, healed the 
King, and married the lady {Tales, II, 484-85). 

Variant b (cont.). — Campbell says: "The remainder of [a second] story 
is nearly the same as the Knight of the Red Shield then follows a differ- 
ent set of adventures The fearful old woman, with the marvelous 

teeth; the gigantic warriors, of whom there are three with many heads; and 
three lovely ladies, who are found under the ground, and carried off by the 
cowards [the hero's two companions]. The story ends with the replacement 
of the king's lost teeth, and the punishment of the knight and the cook [the 
companions]; and [the hero] married the three ladies at once" {Tales, II, 
485-86). 

Variant c. — In this variant, which Campbell barely sketches, the story 
appears to draw close to Conall. The hero was Young Heavenly Eagle, son 
of the King of Greece : he married a Greek lady, and turned out to be the King's 
only legitimate son {Tales, II, 487). 

Variant d, under the name of ''The Son of Green Spring by Valour." — 
The hero was son of the Red Ridere, and went off in a boat with the King's 
two sons to recover the King's teeth [apparently opening with the Insult, 

just as does Red Sh] He had a stone of victory, with which he slew 

his foes He came to a small house where he found no man, but food for 

three — wine and wheaten loaves. He took a little from each portion, and got 
into one of the three beds. Three sorely wounded men came in, cured themselves 
with a magic balsam, and discovered him, and on the morrow he went to fight 
for them. The three Young Men were enchanted princes, the rightful heirs of 
this fiery island, compelled for twenty years to contend daily with armies, 
giants, and monsters. They had lost their mother, and someone had stolen 
their sister, who turned out to be the lady whom the hero had already rescued. 
They told him what he would have to encounter, but he went on and overcame 



THE RED KNIGHT- WITCH-UNCLE STORY 53 

everything, and his coming had been foretold. Armies of enchanted warriors 
fell, three giants with several heads, the three harpers of the little harps, the 
Son of Darkness, Son of Dimness, and, worst of all, a terrible old Carlin, 

because he was aided by his victory stone When the old Carlin arrived, 

she came over the sea with a magic cup to revive the dead warriors and her 
son. She put her finger into the hero's mouth, and he bit it off. He cut her 
head off, it leaped on again, he cut it off again, and it flew up into the skies; 
he held his sword on the neck, looked up, and saw the head coming down and 
aiming at him; he leaped to one side, the head went four feet into the earth, 
and victory was gained. The three Young Men carried him home, bathed 
him in balsam, and cured him. He raised their father and mother from the 
dead, and they promised him their daughter and realm. He recovered and 
restored the King's teeth, restored his father to honor, and married the fair 
lady, who was daughter of the king of the town under the waves {Tales, II, 
491-92). 

Conall. — 4. After a multitude of adventures, Conall wondered how the 
fight in the realm of lubhar^ [ = Judea, Jewry, Newry ?] was coming on between 
his mother's brother and the Turks, and if his father and brothers [who had 
gone to the aid of the King of lubhar] were yet alive. 5. He set out to see, 
with him his wife, Duanach (his minstrel), and two champions for friends. 6. 
When they reached the realm of lubhar, the fighting was going on. [7. Three 
one-day battles are described; as the first two are redundant, only the third 
will be summarized. All whom Conall slew one day were alive the next. The 
King of lubhar was brother to Conall's mother. On the evening of the second 
day, after the battle, the King of lubhar sought Conall at his inn, but Duanach 
said he was asleep, and refused to wake him; but he told the King who Conall 
was, and promised to tell Conall of his Uncle's visit and to deliver the King's 
invitation to Conall to come to the castle next day.] 8. On the third day the 
army of the Turks came on, and Conall went with the people of lubhar to 
battle. 9. He saw the big Turk come opposite him the third time [he had 
slain this giant ( ?) twice already]; Conall slew him, and the Turks fled. 10. 
The people of lubhar slaughtered till no more enemies were to be found, and 
then retired. 11. "It seemed to Conall that there was something that was to 
be understood going on in the field of battle in the night." 12. Ordering 
Duanach back to the inn, he stayed to watch the slain — and Duanach stayed 
to watch him. 13. When the night grew dark, there came a great Turkish 
Carlin, bearing a white glaive of light with which she could see seven miles 
before her and seven behind her, and a flask of balsam. 14. She placed three 
drops of balsam in the mouth of a corpse and bade him rise and go home ; he 
went. 15. She passed from one to another, reviving them for the next day's 
battle. 16. She treated Conall in the same way, but from his alacrity she saw 
he was not a Turk, and fled. 17. Conall pursued; she threw away the flask 
and the glaive; but he overtook her and slew her with his sword. 18. Using 

'A variant gives "Turkey" (Campbell, p. 260, note). 



54 



SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 



the glaive of light he sought the balsam, but Duanach had already picked it 
up. 19. Conall took the flask, and gave the glaive to Duanach, bidding him 
lead off the resurrected Turks to destruction. 20. Conall put the balsam under 
his head and went to sleep, since he could do nothing more till he had slept. 
2 1 . Afterward he revived his own people, and went about the field seeking his 
brothers (whom he gave to his two champion friends to take to safety). 22. 
The great Turk came to him on hands and knees. 23. Conall found his father 
and the King of Laidheann imprisoned and fettered. 24. The death the great 
Turk had measured out for them, to that Conall doomed the Turk. 25. 
After that Conall returned to his wife and took her home with his father and 
brothers, and all were welcomed by his mother (285-93). 

SP and C show, as has been said, certain significant agreements 
that lock them closely together. They tell the same story, with 
this limitation, that SP has added some parts that were not in the 
original story or that C has lost some that were. 

C, W, and Pd{a) tell one and the same story. 

SP agrees with Red Sh, G, Pd{b), and Conall and they agree 
one with another, in so many points, great and small, as to show that 
they preserve the same story. 

SP mediates between the group of the first three accounts on 
the one side and the group of the last four accounts on the other. 
The four incidents — ^A, the Knight's Insult; B, his Death; C, the 
Witch's Death, and D, the Meeting with the Uncle (relatives)^ — 
appear, in so far as they occur, in sequence as follows : 



C, W, Pd{a) 

SP 

RedSh 

G 

Pd{h) 

Conall 



A 


B 




D 






A 


B 


C 


D 






A 




. . 


D 
D 


C 
C 


B 








D 


C 


A 


A 


B 


C 


D 







B 



The subjoined table shows that in the tales of this set there is 
incorporated a single story — the Red Knight- Witch-Uncle story — • 
and that, though it appears with several variations or as several 
variants, it is at bottom one and the same story. The table shows 

' In the comment on this incident (p. 68, infra), it will be shown that it fell into two parts 
in the early form of the story, a meeting before, and one after, the battle. In the Perceval 
tale and in Conall, only the second visit appears, though a modification of even this statement 
is necessary for SP. 



THE RED KNIGHT-WITCH-UNCLE STORY 



55 



that though the sequence of incidents changes from tale to tale, 
the sequence of items within each incident is much the same. 



A. A Knight insults the King 

B. The hero slays the Insulter 

He spends the night on the 
battlefield 

C. He encounters the Witch . . 

Whose Son is mentioned. 

The Magic Balm 

The prophecy^ . ' 

The Witch's death 

By her Son's spear . . . . 
The burning of the Witch. . 

D. The hero meets the Uncle. . 
Or (and) the Three Young 

Men^ 

Who are retiring from 

battle against the 

Witch's Son 

They entertain the hero . . . 
And tell the story of their 

enmity 

The hero ojffers to aid them 

But because of a spell 

He must fight the battle 

alone 



SP 


RedSh 


G 


Pd(b) 


1-5 
6 


1-3 
19 




(13-16) 

(17-18? 

or I?) 


7 


II 


4 


6, 10 


8 
8 


12 
II 


[8-9] 


9-10 


9 


13-14 


6-7 


3 






8-9 


II 


II 


15 


10 


10-12 


II 
II 


15 

(12?) 


(10?) 
(5?) 




12-13 




I 




12-13 


5 


I 


1-4 


12 
14 


5 
6-8 


[i] 

2 


[5] 
5-6 


14 
[16] 


9 

10 

10 


2 

2-3 
(3?) 


6 

7 
7-8 


17 


10 


3 


8 



Conall 
1-2 

3 



11-12 
13 

13-15 

? 

16-17 

(13?) 
(7) 

(7) 



(7,9) 
(7) 

(4) 
(5) 



' A prophecy occurs within the story in both SP and Red Sh, but at a diflEerent place; cf. "5 " in SP. 

' In Conall the Big Turk is probably the Hag's son; there is no statement. Conall 's father and 
brothers are substitutes for the three Young Men. The story of the Turk's enmity is known to Conall 
before he leaves home. He does not meet his Relatives before the battle, but he wins the battle for them. 
He does not fight alone. His meeting with his Uncle is the "second" one. 



THE SECOND SET OF TALES 

First Group {see p. 41, supra) 

Fionn's Ransom [a variant of Red Sh]. — Fionn was with "his three foster 
brothers, the Red Knight, the Knight of the Cairn, and the Knight of the 
Sword," on a hill. Out of a shower from the northwest came a rider on a black 
horse. He knocked out the three upper and three lower of Fionn's teeth. 
The foster brothers started off to recover them. 

A little, insignificant, but strong man appeared, asked permission to accom- 
pany them, was refused it by the brothers, but was granted it by Fionn. While 
sailing, the man climbed the mast when the others had failed. They came to a 
harbor in the "Kingdom of Big Men" guarded by three Fiery Darts that 
gleamed all around it. The little man leaped over the fire, then returned, and, 
carrying the travelers, leaped over it again. 



56 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

Walking in the island, they found a tall woman with a brown, fat, little 
lap-dog at her heels; when the dog looked at Fionn, his teeth were in place; 
when he looked away, the teeth were gone. Taking woman and dog, the foster 
brothers went back to the ship, and left the little man on the island. 

He came to a small dwelling-house, and entered. A tall man returned 
home, and to a salutation and inquiry announced: "My news are but sorrow- 
ful, for my beautiful sister, who used to put me in the bath when I returned 
home from fighting the battle, and made me as cheerful as ever to go to battle 
and combat the next day, has been taken away, and is lost and astray from me." 
The little man washed him in the washing-bath, so that he never felt more 
refreshed or joyful. The same happened for a second and a third man (broth- 
ers of the first) . The little man asked if he might go to battle in their place, 
and was refused. Explanation was made: a regiment of soldiers would come, 
and though he beheaded each one, a Hag would come after him with a life- 
restoring stoup and dip her finger in that and put the finger in the mouths of 
the men, and each would spring up aHve. Then would come a regiment of 
soldiers with musical harpers at its head who would put him to sleep. Then a 
tall man of terrific aspect; and after him would come an old woman whose 
breath would kill. 

The little man obtained permission to go to battle. He hid till the first 
regiment passed, then rose and slew each one. The Hag arrived, restored a 
soldier, and came to the hero, who bit off her finger. He rose and slew her 
and the restored soldier by one stroke. The harpers came; the hero fixed his 
sword so that the point would prick his forehead if he nodded. When the 
soldiers had past, he rose and slew all. He dug a hole and covered it over 
with wood, grass, and moss. The Big Grey Man came. The hero so con- 
ducted his fight that the Big Grey Man fell into the hole; then the little man 
cut off his head. The Old Woman came, and she and the hero fought till 
both fell exhausted. In the morning the brothers came to the battlefield, 
and at the hero's request placed balsam in his mouth; thus reinvigorated he 
rose and slew the Old Woman. 

The hero went home with the brothers and lived with them for a while. 
One day when the hero was on a hill, the rider on the black steed came 
out of a shower and attacked him, but had his head cut off. The hero 
found on this rider only two combs and a purse in which were Fionn's 
teeth. He took the teeth and returned to the brothers' home. The tallest 
brother lamented, telling the hero he had slain their father's only brother. 
Another said: "It has long been foretold that it would be the restorer of 
Fionn MacCumhail's loss who would give us deliverance from all our warfare 
and conflict." 

The hero decided to leave. The brothers gave him the Black Steed. 
"And you wiU bring to our sister news of us, and make her your lawful wife." 
He returned and restored Fionn's teeth. 

The Champion of the Red Belt. — The Champion was traveling from Greece 



THE RED KNIGHT- WITCH-UNCLE STORY 57 

in search of the "heaUng water" to restore his brother, who had lost his Hfe 
through the enchantment of the harper, who had played a tune that put him 
to sleep, after which the King of the Eastern World had slain him. 

The Champion went toward the Eastern World. He came to a ten-foot 
fence, and leaped it. There were the "three sons of Kanikinn," playing ball. 
They told the Champion that the King Knight of the black castle had taken 
the healing water from them seven years before; and now he killed three 
hundred men every day. They told the Champion he had best not go to the 
black castle. [Thus the enmity to the Three Young Men is obscured.] The 
Champion came to a black castle. He heard a noise and jumped behind a 
barrel to hide. Light burst from the castle door; the knight of the castle 
arrived home, hung his sword on a peg, and took off his coat of steel. The 
Champion challenged him; the knight replied that they would not fight till 
morning, invited the Champion in, and promised him safety, saying he had 
talked with no one for seven years. The Champion requested the "bottle of 
heahng water," and was told that the knight's stepmother had taken it seven 
years before. Every day the knight has had to kill three hundred men, and 
the stepmother ("hag of sorceries") brought them to life again. Conversa- 
tion revealed the fact that the knight of the black castle was the Champion's 
youngest brother, lost at the time of birth. [Here the kinship comes in — the 
youngest brother is substituted for the Three Young Men who are foster 
brothers.] The Champion asked permission to do the fighting next day instead 
of the knight, and finally was allowed to go. 

He slew the three hundred men. "Then he lay down among the dead men 
to see what it was brought them to life." The hideous hag came with a bottle 
of the water of healing on a button that was on her breast. There was a feather 
in the bottle; with the feather she rubbed a corpse, and the man came alive. 
She restored nine, whom the Champion slew. Then he and the hag fought. 
He finally slew her by striking off her head, and took the bottle of healing water. 
When dying, the hag put him under spells to meet the three hundred cats. 
He went to meet the cats, and told of the death of the three hundred men and 
the one-legged hag. He slew the cats, and by the last one was put under 
spells to fight the Wether of Fuerish Fwee-ere. He sought and slew the Wether, 
who put him under spells to meet the king cat of the Western Island [who was, 
however, a hag]. "He went forward in the camp." He met the king cat, 
and they fought. She [the hag] had a long tail with a poison spot on it. She 
jumped over him, put the poison spot through his heart, and then with the 
claw on the end of her tail she drew the heart out of him. As the Champion 
was falling, he thrust his hand through her open mouth and drew out her heart. 
The two fell dead. 

The king knight of the black castle followed to see how his brother should 
fare. He found the slain and followed on. He came to the bodies of his 
brother and his stepmother. "A lump of mist came" and told him which 
was the Champion's heart; he washed it, fixed it in his brother, found the 



58 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

bottle of healing water, dipped the feather in it, and nibbed his brother's 
mouth; and the Champion rose up alive and well. 

The Champion provided a wife for the knight; returned, restored the 
bewitched brother, and provided him a wife, the daughter of the King of 
Under waveland. Then he went to the island of the King of Greece, and there 
he married the King's daughter. 

Hookedy. — Jack was son of the King of Ireland. Seeking his fortune, he 
took service with a giant, who, going from home, gave Jack the run of the whole 
place except the stable. Jack entered the forbidden place, and, though pun- 
ished for doing so, was led thereby into his further adventures. A mare and a 
bear found in the stable befriended him. On the mare he fled, the giant pur- 
suing. A chestnut and a drop of water (each taken from the mare's ear) 
thrown behind him by Jack interposed barriers the giant could not overcome. 
Jack, mare, and bear came to safety; as they parted, the mare blew on Jack, 
and he became an ugly little hookedy-crookedy fellow; then she gave him a 
wishing-cap, promised aid, and they departed. Jack took service with a 
King of Scotland, who did not fear Jack's influence over his daughters, he was 
so ugly. The King of Scotland was threatened with war by the King of the 
East. Advised by his druid, the King of Scotland sought aid by marrying his 
daughters, the oldest to the King of Spain, the next to the King of France. The 
youngest daughter refused to marry at all, and was banished the royal presence. 

The King of Scotland then sent the Kings of Spain and France to the Well 
of the World's End to bring bottles of "loca" [a liquid that would heal wounds 
and revive the dead] to use after the battle. Jack sought advice of the mare, 
used his wishing-cap, and of course, got the "loca," two bottles of it. He kept 
some of it, and gave the rest to the Kings of France and Spain, who returned 
to the King of Scotland and were welcomed as heroes; Jack returned to his 
humble duties as gardener's help. Battle was prepared. Jack went to the 
mare, secured arms and equipment, won the battle for Scotland, and dis- 
appeared. The second and third days were similar, Jack appearing finer each 
day. The loca revived the Scottish army. After further mystification of 
his friends. Jack explained the whole matter, and married the youngest daughter. 
The mare was disappointed, for she was a maiden condemned (bewitched) 
to that shape for a number of years, and her brother was the bear. She had 
hoped to marry Jack herself, but she wished him well. 

Second Group 

Fear Dubh. — Fear Dubh invited the Fenians to a feast at his castle in Alba ; 
and when they were seated, they could not rise from their seats. Fear Dubh 
was coming with an army to slay them — "These men from Alba had always a 
grudge against the Champions of Erin." The horn of distress was sounded. 
Fin's son Fialan, only three years old, rose ir Ireland and came to aid his 
father. 



THE RED KNIGHT- WITCH-UNCLE STORY 59 

Instructed by Fin, Fialan took his place in the ford, and when Fear Dubh 
and his army arrived, he slew them all; a second army under Fear Dubh's 
younger brother fared likewise; a third under the youngest brother also. Diar- 
muid, who had been hunting, came to Fin's aid. Through the castle door. Fin 
told him: "Oh, Diarmuid, we are all fastened in here to be killed. Fialan has 
destroyed three armies, and Fear Dubh with his two brothers. He is raging 
now along the bank of the river; you must not go near him, for he would tear 
you limb from limb. At this time, he wouldn't spare me, his own father; 
but after a while he will cease from raging and die down; and then you can go. 
The mother of Fear Dubh is coming, and will soon be at the ford. She is more 
violent, more venomous, more to be dreaded, a greater warrior than her sons. 
The chief weapon she has are [sic] the nails on her fingers; each nail is seven 
perches long, of the hardest steel on earth. She is coming in the air at this 
moment with the speed of the hawk, and she has a kuran (a small vessel), 
with liquor in it, which has such power that if she puts three drops of it on the 
mouths of her sons they will rise up as well as ever; and if she brings them to 
life there is nothing to save us. Go to the ford; she will be hovering over the 
corpses of the three armies to know can she fijid her sons, and as soon as she 
sees them she will dart down and give them the liquor. You must rise with a 
mighty bound upon her, dash the kuran out of her hand and spill the liquor. 
If you can kill her, save her blood, for nothing in the world can free us from this 
place and open the door of the castle but the blood of the old Hag." .... 
Aided in the fight by Bran (Fin's dog) Diarmuid succeeded. 

He caught the Hag's blood in a vessel, and with it cured his own wounds 
and Bran's, and released the Fenians. 

Fin MacCumhail and the Son of the King of Alba. — [This tale contains 
almost a repetition of the preceding adventure.] Fin and his followers, stuck 
to their seats in a magic castle, were released by Pogan and Ceolan, Fin's two 
sons [= substitutes for Fialan]. They slew an army; then came music; then 
the Hag with a little pot [of balsam], and she was slain. Then the heroes had 
to slay three kings in the north of Erin, for only by the blood of the kings could 
they release Fin and his company (J. Curtin, Myths, etc., 292-303). 

Kennedy {Bardic Stories, 116-26) has a variant of the last tale in "An 
Bruighean Caorthain (The Quick-Beam Fort)." Lochlann, a Grecian chief, 
the King of the World, and three Kings of the Islands of the Floods are among 
Fin's enemies; but the Hag and her Balm do not appear. 

Third Group 

Faolan. — Faolan and Dyeermud traveled days till they came to a large, 
white-fronted castle. They knocked, and were admitted by a fine young 
woman, who kissed Faolan and said: "You and I were born at the same hour, 
and betrothed at our birth. Your mother married Fin to rescue her brothers, 
your uncles, from the bonds of enchantment." They sat down to eat and 



6o SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

drink; and they were not long eating when in came four champions, all torn, 
cut, and bleeding. Dyeermud started up, sword in hand. "Have no fear," 
said she to Dyeermud. The four champions explained: they were returning 
from battle with a wild hag, who for seven years had been trying to take their 
land from them. All the warriors they slew in the day she raised up at night. 
And they would have to fight again the next day. Dyeermud bade them 
stay at home next day, and he and Faolan would do battle for them. 

Faolan and Dyeermud went out, began at opposite ends of the host in 
the morning, and met at the middle at sunset, slaying all the hag's warriors. 
"Go back to the castle," said Faolan to Dyeermud; "I will rest here tonight, 
and see what gives life to the corpses." Dyeermud left. 

About midnight, Faolan heard the voice of a man in the air just above him. 
"Is there anyone living?" asked the voice. Faolan, with a bound, grasped 
the man, and, drawing him down with one hand, pierced him through with his 
sword in the other. The man fell dead; and then, instead of the old man he 
seemed at first, he rose up a fresh young man of twenty-two years. The 
young man embraced and thanked Faolan. "I am your uncle," said he, 
"brother of the poisonous hound that you freed from enchantment at sea. 
I was fourteen years in the power of the wild hag, and could not be freed till 
my father's sword pierced me. Give me that sword, which belonged to my 
father. It was to deliver me that your mother gave you that blade. I will 
give you a better one still, since you are a greater champion than I. I will 
give you my grandfather's sword; here it is. When the wild hag grows 
uneasy at my delay, she herself will hasten hither. She knew that you were 
to come and release me, and she is preparing this long time to meet you. For 
seven years she has been making steel nails to tear you to pieces; and she has 
sweet music which she will play when she sees you: that music makes every 
man sleep when he hears it. When you feel the sleep coming, stab your leg 
with your sword; that will keep you awake [no Harpers occur]. She will 
then give you battle; and if you chance to cut off her head, let not the head 
come to the body: for if it comes on the body, all the world could not take it 
away. When you cut off her head, grasp it in one hand, and hold it till all the 
blood flows out; make two halves of the head, holding it in your hand all the 
while; and I will remove the stone cover from a very deep well here at hand; 
and do you throw the split head into that well, and put the cover on again." 

All happened as the uncle had said. But just as Faolan was going to cover 
the well, the head spoke, and put him under spells to go tell the Cat of Gray 
Fort that he had destroyed the hag. The uncle embraced Faolan then, and 
said: "Now I will go to my sister, your mother; but first I wiU guide you to 
this hag's enchanted well: if you bathe in its water, you will be as sound and 
well as ever." Faolan bathed and was cured. Then, not calling Dyeermud, 
he went to seek the Cat. He killed the Cat, and was sent to teU the Kitten of 
Cul MacKip of the deed. He went to seek the Kitten. Toward evening, 
he saw a castle, went toward it, and entered it. When inside he saw half a 



THE RED KNIGHT- WITCH-UNCLE STORY 6 1 

loaf of barley bread and a quart of ale placed on the window. "Whoever 
own these, I will use them," said the youth; he ate, and then saw a kitten by 
the ashes. After a battle of a night and a day, he slew the Kitten; and was 
put under spells to tell the Dun Ox. He went on, met a forester, who welcomed 
him, and directed him and explained how the Dun Ox was to be slain. Faolan 
encountered the Ox, and both he and the Ox were slain. 

"Dyeermud slept a hero's sleep of seven days and seven nights." He 
waked, heard no tidings of Faolan, and, furious, set off to seek him. Faolan's 
betrothed and her four brothers accompanied him. The young woman was the 
wise one and the leader. They followed Faolan's trail of slaughter till they 
met the forester, who recognized Dyeermud. The six spent the night at his 
cabin, and next morning they found Faolan. "The young woman bathed him 
with some fluid from a vial, and, opening his mouth, poured the rest down his 
throat. He rose up at once, as sound and healthy as ever." .... The forester 
directed them to the castle of the Black-Blue Giant, and accompanied them. 

[Other adventures occur that have no bearing here.] 

Dyeermud was sorely wounded, but was healed by the forester, who rubbed 
ointment on him. Later Dyeermud, by request, cut off the head of the forester, 
and thus restored him to youth; and he was Arthur, son of Deara, under 
enchantment, and he was in love with Dyeermud's sister. All visited Erin 
and returned, and then Faolan married the sister of the four Young Men. 
End follows soon. 

Manus. — .... Manus entered a room in a brilliantly lighted building, and 
there found food set out for twelve champions; he tasted some of each portion, 
and hid himself; but he was discovered soon after the Big Men entered. The 
Red-haired Man (the leader) shortly afterward explained why he could not sleep. 
For seven years he had contended against three big giants, their mother, and 
their hosts of thousands; those slain in the day came alive at night. There 
was a prophecy that this state of things would last till the coming of Manus, 
son of the King of Lochlann (and son, also, of the sister of the Red-haired Man). 

By telling a story, Manus put the Red-haired Man to sleep; then he took 
the Man's sword, went to the battlefield, and lay down among the dead. 
[Manus had not fought.] One after another, three five-headed giants came, 
prepared to raise the dead by placing a finger in the corpse's mouth, reached 
Manus, recognized him when he bit their fingers (the last two speaking of the 
prophecy), wrestled with him, and then were slain. Each giant bore "a 
reviving cordial " to waken and bring alive the dead. When day was approach- 
ing, the hag came, recognized Manus, and engaged in battle with him. When he 
struck off her head, it flew back on, till a voice told him to hold his sword on 
the neck till blood and marrow froze. He did so; and all the giants were now 
destroyed. Harpers came, but he slew them with their own harps. He lay 
down upon the battlefield. 

In the morning the Red-haired Man sought and found Manus, took him 
home, and later helped him in his next adventure 



62 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

Big Men. — Substitute for the Insult: three Champions from the King- 
dom of Big Men came to Erin in a boat Hke "the blackness of a shower"; 
they challenged Fin, but he put them under spells to remain where they were 
till his return. 

Fin went to the Kingdom of Big Men and was taken by the King to be his 
dwarf. The King had to go away each night. 

Fin secured permission to go in the King's place one night The 

King's opponent was a Monster. Fin put the Monster off for two nights. 
Next night Fin, with the help of Bran, slew the Monster, cut off its head, and 
took it home. Next night he did the same for a still greater Monster. On the 
last night he slew the Hag, who like her son and husband, the Monsters, came 
up from the sea. There was a prophecy, said the King, that only Fin could 
bring relief from these creatures, who had long harassed the Kingdom. 

Fin returned home, succeeded by the help of Skilful Companions in stealing 
the magic shirts from the Three Champions, and then overcame them and 
forced them to swear fealty to him. 

Fionn and Bran. — Much of the incident outlined above recurs. The King 
has not been able to sleep for seventeen years; and the second Monster and the 
Hag do not occur (J. G. Campbell, The Fians, 212-18). 

Dough. — . . . . Amadan was forced by his stepmother to leave home. 
He traveled till he came to a castle, entered, found dinner spread, and ate. 
Three young men entered, tired and bleeding; they struck a flint against the 

castle, and the castle shone as if on fire They had daily to fight three 

giants. 

Amadan and they went to battle. The giants were slain; Amadan sent the 
princes home, and he lay down upon the battlefield. The Hag came, accom- 
panied by four badachs (unwieldy big fellows), and bearing a feather and a bottle 
of iocshlainte (ointment of health). She revived the giants; then Amadan slew 
all eight. By the geasa of the Hag and of successive victims, he had to seek 
and slay the Black Bull of the Brown Wood, the White Wether of the Hill of 
Waterfalls, the Beggarman of the King of Sweden, and the Silver Cat of the 
Seven Glens. After he left the Hag, he came to a cottage covered by only a 
single feather, where he found "a rough red woman," and from her he had 
full directions how to meet and slay each new antagonist. 

After all his enemies had been slain, he traveled back to the "Castle of 
Fire"; and the princes gave him their sister, extremely beautiful, for wife, and 
half their fortune. , 

The rough, red woman disappears; she is not said to be kin to anybody, 
hero or princess. Compare the Empress in Pd{b). 

Kit Arthur. — .... Arthur overcame a giant, who to save his life offered 
Arthur his sword of light, rod of enchantment, and "healing draught which 
cures every sickness and wound." Arthur received the gifts, but struck off 
the giant's head anyway. He thrust the head in the fire, and as soon as he did, 
a beautiful woman stood before him, and said: "You have killed nine of my 



THE RED KNIGHT-WITCH-UNCLE STORY 63 

brothers, and this was the best of the nine. I have eight more brothers who 
go out to fight with four hundred men each day, and they kill them all; but 
next morning the four hundred are alive again, and my brothers have to 
do battle anew. Now my mother and these eight brothers will soon be here; 
and they'll go down on their bended knees and curse you who killed my nine 
brothers, and I am afraid your blood will arise within you when you hear the 
curses, and you'll kill my remaining eight brothers." Arthur promised he 
would not. All happened as foretold. 

Next morning he arose early, girded on his nine-edged sword, went to where 
the eight brothers were going to fight the four hundred, and said to them: " Sit 
down, and I'll fight in your place." He fought, and at midday he had them all 
slain. "Now someone brings these to life again," he said. "I lie down among 
them and see who it is." Soon he saw an old Hag coming with a brush in her 
hand, and an open vessel hanging from her neck by a string. When she came 
to the four hundred, she dipped the brush into the vessel and sprinkled the 
liquid which was in it over the bodies of the men. They rose up behind her 
as she passed along. "Bad luck to you," said Arthur; "your are the one that 
keeps them alive!" Then he seized her; putting one of his feet on her two 
ankles, and grasping her by the head and shoulders, he twisted her body till 
he put the life out of her. Dying, she put him under spells to tell the Ram of 
the Five Rocks of the deed. He went to the Ram, seized it, and dashed its 
brains out. 

Then he went to the castle of the beautiful woman whose nine brothers 
he had killed, and for whose eight brothers he had slain the four hundred. 
When he appeared, the mother rejoiced; the eight brothers blessed him and 
gave him their sister in marriage; and Kil Arthur took the beautiful woman to 
his father's castle in Erin, where they both lived happily and well. 

Mananaun.^ — Pampogue, daughter of Mananaun, loved Kaytuch, who was 
slain; she took his body and sailed to an island, where every evening she saw 
two men carry by a dead man, and in the morning three live men returned. 
One of them explained to her: "When my father and mother were living, my 
father was a king, and when he died, there came Fawgawns and Blue-men on 
us, and banished us out of two islands; and we are on top of the third island 
with them, and as many of them as we kill are alive to fight us again in the 
morning; and every day they kill one of us, and we bring him to life again 
with the healing water." They healed Kaytuch. 

Next morning he asked where the battlefield was, and the young men said: 
"If you were a good champion, you would have searched the place, and you 
would know in what place they give battle." Angrily he strode off alone. 
"He did not go far when he saw the blackness of the hill with people coming 
toward him." He slew all; and "stretched himself among the dead to see 

* A variant of this tale, substituting something else for the part we are interested in, occurs 
in Maclnnes, Folk and Hero Tales, pp. 376-83. A second variant in Campbell's Fians, pp. 
225-32, has no balm and no battle. 



64 SIR PERCEVAL OE GALLES 

who else was coming." An old man and an old woman approached, Slaughter 
and Hag of Slaughter. They "threw a dash" on the dead, who rose up like 
midges. Kaytuch slew the revived, then the old couple. Next came the tall, 
toothless, rusty Hag of the Church. He tried in several ways to kill her and 
failed; at the advice of a bird, he jumped on her shoulders and pulled her head 
off. Then he had to slay the Lamb of Luck, and the Cat of Hoorebrike. But 
the Cat slew Kaytuch too. 

The three men (who were brothers) sought Kaytuch, and revived him with 
the healing water. He restored their realm, and departed to Erin. 

Fourth Group 

Birth of Fin MacCumhail. — [In general outline, but not in detail, Fin's 
early life here is similar to Perceval's life in the forest; cf. p. 4, n. 3, and chap, 
i, supra.] .... Fin slew three giants. Then came their mother, a Hag who 
had a *'vial of liquid with which she could bring the sons to life." The battle 
against the giants, one after the other, had been at night; at midnight the Hag 
arrived, and Fin, though greatly weakened from loss of blood, sprang up into 
the air, and swept the bottle from her grasp, which, falling to the ground, was 
emptied. Fin and the Hag had a fearful battle, but just as daylight was com- 
ing, he swept her head off. Then he cured his wounds with her blood (J. 
Curtin, Myths, etc., 204-20). 

Lawn Dyarrig (a variant of Red Sh). — Lawn Dyarrig was the despised 
youngest of the King's three sons. The Kling's teeth were knocked out; and 
the three sons started off to avenge the insult. Lawn Dyarrig being mocked 
by his two brothers. 

They came to a house, and a woman sheltered them over night, befriending 
Lawn Dyarrig (the hero), and giving him a sword and a magic horse. The 
hero took his brothers up behind him, the steed traveled marvelously, and 
when it stopped in the Eastern World, they alighted. The hero, following the 
woman's instructions, cut the sod from under the steed's foot, and the Terrible 
Valley was under them. The horse was loosed and sent home; and the 
brothers made ropes and a basket. Then, after each of the older brothers 
had descended a short way and been frightened back, the hero was let down 
through the hole. 

Lawn Dyarrig slew seven hundred heroes guarding the country. Next 
he came to a spring, and lay down and slept. A lady learned through her 
maid of his presence, knew [by magic or prophecy] that it was Lawn Dyarrig, 
ran to him, kissed him, and took him to the castle of the Green Knight. 

The Knight returned home and sent three hundred heroes to bring the 
heart of the hero to him. The hero slew them, and a second three hundred. 
Next three hundred savage hirelings were sent; but he took one by the ankles 
and slew all the rest with him, wearing him down to a pair of shin bones. He 
then went from his room to where the Knight was at dinner, took the dinner and 



THE RED KNIGHT- WITCH-UNCLE STORY 65 

the lady for himself, and then took the lady to his room and spent the night. 
Next morning he and the Knight fought, and, following the lady's instructions, 
he won the battle. The hero and the lady spent a second night "very com- 
fortably." Next morning they rose early and collected all the gold, utensils, 
and treasures. He found the three teeth of his father in a pocket of the Green 
Knight and took them. He and the lady carried all the riches to where the 
basket was. "If I send up this beautiful lady," thought he, "she may be 
taken from me by my brothers; if I remain below with her she may be taken 
from me by the people here." 

He put her in the basket. She gave him a ring so that they might know 
each other if they met. He shook the gad [rope], and she rose in the basket. 
The brothers ran off with the lady; and on the way the oldest found the head 
of an old horse with teeth in it; he took them home and tried to put them in 
his father's head, but his father stopped him. 

The hero went farther in the Valley, met and overcame Shortclothes, 
but was put under spells to go to the northeast point of the world to bring " the 
heart and liver of the serpent which is seven years asleep and seven years 
awake. "^ He accomplished that adventure. Then he secured a horse that 
brought him to Erin just when his oldest brother was about to marry his lady. 
Lawn Dyarrig dropped his ring into a cup of wine, and the lady saw it and 
knew him. The King's teeth were replaced. The lady gave the queen a 
magic girdle which forced her to acknowledge that her two older sons were 
bastards and that Lawn Dyarrig was her only son by the King. Of course, 
Lawn Dyarrig then secured half the kingdom. And his two older brothers 
became his servants. 

A reading of the foregoing summaries shows that while there is a 
considerable latitude of presentation, there is evidently much the 
same story at the basis of all the accounts. The first group contains 
the Insult (or equivalent) , First Meeting with Relatives (or Young 
Men), the Hag Battle, Second Meeting with Relatives, and the 
Insulter's Death. The second group contains the Insult, the 
Insulter's Death (or punishment), the Hag (with or without a 
Battle), and the Meeting with Relatives. The third group con- 
tains the First Meeting with Relatives (or Three Young Men), 
the Hag Battle, and the Second Meeting with Relatives. And in 
the fourth group, the Birth of Fin presents only the Hag Battle; 
while Lawn Dyarrig carries the shell of the Red Sh tale, but omits 
the Meeting with Relatives (or Young Men) and the Battle, sub- 
stituting other incidents for them that are not variants of them. 

' A serpent appears in Pd, 269, itj-'j^. 



66 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

Since the two incidents of the Insult and the Insulter's Death 
appear in all five of our Perceval tales {SP, C and G, W, and Pd), 
it will not be necessary to stop here to consider whether they were 
integral parts of the original story that told of the hero's rescue of 
the Young Men from the persecution of the Hag or not. Red Sh 
reproduces pretty nearly what must have been the protot3^e of 
this portion of the Perceval tale. 

The following paragraphs are an argument to show that the 
source of this part of SP, C, W, Pd{a), Pd{b), and G was a story in 
which appeared, besides some minor ones, five main incidents: 
the Insult, the First Meeting with Relatives, the Battle against 
the Hag's Host, the Second Meeting with Relatives, and the 
Insulter's Death. Material for the first and last incidents is not 
plentiful nor decisive as to shape ; for the three others it is both 
abundant and decisive. 

An incident in which a king is insulted is not of uncommon 
occurrence. Analyzed as it appears in the group of tales summarized 
above and in still other tales, it occurs in at least three types. And 
a slight alteration on the part of the narrator could change it from 
one t5^e to another. 

In the first type a magician (perhaps in the form of a knight, 
perhaps not) comes to court and insults the king, and a despised 
youth becomes the hero of the hour by overthrowing him. This 
form of insult appears in Red Sh and Ransom. It is possible that 
originally the magician just came, and it was left for the inquisitive 
minds of later ages of story- telling to inquire why he came. This 
type presumes a countergif t of magic : the hero is clearly stated to 
possess this in the Tent Lady's ring in SP (11. 1857-64; 1894-96), 
the Empress' stone in Pd{h), the stone of victory in Red Sh 
variant d (p. 491), in the solution of the magician's own riddle in 
Red Sh (p. 466), and in the advice of the eagle in Red Sh variant a 

(p. 485). 

In the second t3^e a person, a magician most likely, appears at 
court and dares the king or one of his courtiers to attempt some 
feat which, of course, can be achieved only by the hero, who is 
then acknowledged best of knights (or men). Again the hero 
probably possesses a countergif t of magic. Sir Gawain and the 



THE RED KNIGHT- WITCH-UNCLE STORY 67 

Green Knight represents this type. It appears, too, in Champion of 
the Red Belt. A magician bespells the Champion's brother, and 
the spell can be removed only by the healing water, which, in turn, 
can be procured only by the hero. It appears, probably, too, in 
the incident in Pd{h) : the Black Man, bearing a goblet, enters the 
court of the Empress and requests her to hand the goblet only to 
him who is willing to fight the bearer." Since Pd is in many places 
rather a bundle of notes than an elaborated tale, it is not leaving 
certainties far behind to surmise that in the original state the Black 
Man bore a goblet from which only the destined hero could drink, 
say, without spilling the contents or without passing under a spell. ^ 
Tyolet and the Beautiful Unknown tales lean toward this type, 
though they substitute a lady's plea for aid in the place of the 
^'insult." The death of the magician was not necessary, but it 
might occur. 

In the third type a knight considers as his own certain lands 
now ruled by the king, and defies the king to test his claim by 
combat. This type, in a simple form, is found in the Wedding 
of Sir Gawain and the Awntyrs of Arthur at the Tarn Waddling 
(sts. 33 ff.). 

SP and Pd{a) (or their sources) combined the second type with 
the first to form the incident in their accounts of the Red Knight : 
C {W following) adapted its incident to fit the third type, but 
retained remnants of the second. The incident used by all the 
four versions doubtless belonged, in its earlier form, to the first 
type, or to the first and second combined; and the result in C is 
due to the impulse to refine. When Crestien, or his source, pruned 
away from the Perceval plot the magicaP elements (here as else- 
where), the insulting portion of the Red Knight's activities was 
left motiveless. Motivation and refinement were both secured 
by the substitution of the land claimant of the third type for the 

' Cf. confirmatory similarities in the tests in Fool (the Gruagach's cup), Le manteau mal 
faille, Gawain and the Green Knight, etc. In C and W it is the spilling of wine on the Queen 
that is especially distressing. 

* Magic disappeared everywhere except in the Grail adventures. So completely has 
magic disappeared from the Perceval parts that it seems to me that there must have been 
conscious excision. In the Gawain plot (or subplot) of the later portion of the poem magic is 
still to be found. Cf. comment, p. 127, infra. 



68 SIR PERCEVAL OF GAtLES 

repugnant insulter of the first; and then any remnants of roughness 
were to be explained, as Wolfram's Red Knight does explain them, 
as '^ accidents." After planning for these changes and for an indi- 
rect narrative of the Knight's visit to court, Crestien (or his source) 
had still to provide an adequate explanation of Perceval's willing- 
ness to fight the Red Knight ; so Perceval was made to see him before 
reaching court, and since he was one of the few knights Perceval 
had ever seen and was presumably the most beautifully dressed 
(and cf. here the comments and notes on p. 45, supra), the hero 
desired to possess his accouterments and was shortly afterward 
spurred on to a willingness to do battle for them. Possibly in the 
source a desire for the red armor was expressed; such almost 
happens in Red Sh. 

The Relatives were met twice^ in the early form of the story, but, 
for the sake of economy, both meetings may be commented on at 
the same time. The first meeting, or visit, occurred before the 
battle against the Hag's host, and the second after the Hag had 
been slain. Both appear in the fuller versions of the incident, such 
as Red Sh and G. In SP only one visit appears, but the account 
shows a confusion of the two visits of the completer versions: 
Perceval met his kinsmen after he had slain the Witch, but he went 
from them to fight a battle the account of which manifests contami- 
nation from that of the battle against the hosts of the Hag. The 
visit in C, W, Pd{a) is the second only. 

The Relatives appear in several variant forms. Sometimes it 
is only an Uncle whom the hero assists against his foes, as in Manus; 
sometimes only Three Young Men who are not related to him, as 
in Pdih) ; frequently it is Three Young Men who are kin to him, 
as in Red Sh, though in Red Sh the hero's foster father also is 
mentioned; in Conall the Uncle appears, but the hero's father and 
two brothers are substituted for the Three Young Men. The 
form of the story that entered into the making of the Perceval tale 
pretty certainly had both the Uncle and the Three Young Men 
(the Uncle's sons). For the presence of the Uncle we have the 

' There may, indeed, have been three meetings, the third being after the Insulter's death; 
such a third meeting occurs, e.g., in Ransom. 



THE RED KNIGHT-WITCH-UNCLE STORY 69 

testimony of SP,^ Conall, Faolan, Manus, Red Sh variant d, and 
the mention of the foster father in Red Sh; and in Pd(a) Perceval's 
Uncle appears.^ The Relative visited by the hero in C, W, and G 
is said to be the Uncle of the heroine: in reality he is the same 
character — it is only the kinship that has been shifted; if this is 
not sufficiently proved by SP, Pd{a), and especially G, still other 
evidence is offered by W, as will be seen when presently we take 
up the woman in the case. 

The Three Young Men are a fairly stable factor, appearing in a 
large proportion of versions. (As a general thing, when an account 
has changed or omitted them, it has given the hero three antago- 
nists — ^giants or monsters — as a sort of substitute.) Not to multiply 
examples, the Young Men appear clearest perhaps in Red Sh. 
Pd(b) has the Three, too. Most noticeable among the departures 
from the number three are the statements that there were four in 
G and Faolan ^ for which variation I have no explanation to offer; 
and that there were nine in SP and Kil Arthur, though the latter 
goes on to add eight more to the nine, always, however, keeping 
the seventeen separated into the two groups of nine and eight. But 
even SP offers a strong piece of evidence that the number was three : 
one of the points in the story is that when the hero offers to fight 
the battle for his Relatives, he must, because of a spell or for some 
such reason, fight unassisted; the spell is mentioned in Red Sh, and 
is implied in Pd{h), G, Mananaun, etc. ; now, in SP, when Perceval 
is leaving his Uncle's home, three of his nine cousins beg permission 
to accompany him, and start along, but very shortly they are sent 
back without any apparent reason whatever, and the battle that 
Perceval was going to, as will appear in chapter IV, was in part the 
battle against the Hag's host; the account of the spell on the Three 
Young Men has fallen out of SP, but its effect remains. 

The Three Young Men do not appear in C. Gornemans is not 
said to have any sons at all, though his two pages are mentioned. 

' The fact that SP makes the hero's mother sister to Arthur rose through the influence of 
this story in some way, I think. Cf. similarities in Manus, Conall, etc. 

* In WiUiams' Y Seint Greal {passim, esp. pp. 276, 716) Perceval has an Uncle who is 
master of the black art and who is probably his enemy (cf . Faolan) ; he is called King of the 
Dead Castle; cf. Rhys, Arth. Leg., 118, 273 ff. The Huth Merlin makes this(?) character its 
Garlan, or Gallan, and in Malory he is Garlon in the Balyn story. 



70 SIR PERCEVAL OF GABLES 

In Pd{a) his equivalent has two sons — an unusual disregard of the 
Welshman's conventional love of the number three. W, however, 
dwells on the fact that the Uncle (Gurnemanz) has had three sons, 
though none were living at the time of Parzival's visit; and one 
of these sons at least had lost his life, shortly before the visit of the 
hero, in the long contest that the hero was to bring to an end (the 
element of the revivifying Magic Balm had dropped out of W or 
its source). The shifting of the kinship, making Gornemans uncle 
of the heroine instead of uncle of the hero, that appears in C and W^ 
is, I think, a paradoxical reflex of the influence of an early form of 
the Red Knight- Witch-Uncle story : in the early form the hero left 
his Relatives and went to fight their battle ; after the disappearance 
from C (or its source) of the Young Men and their battle (for the 
battle was essentially theirs, not the Uncle's), the next battle 
Perceval fought was in behalf of the heroine ; the kinship then was 
shifted, and the hero went to fight the battle of the Uncle's niece 
instead of the Uncle's sons.^ The shift was the more easily made, 
furthermore, because of the part played by women in this story. 

Among the Relatives and assistants two Women appear; i.e., 
some versions, as Pdih) and Hookedy-Crookedy, have two Women; 
some, as Red Sh and Kit Arthur, have only one. The first of the 
two is the Sister of the Young Men, and she appears in most versions. 
As Sister of the Young Men, she is, of course, in many cases foster 
sister to the hero. In the conclusion of the story she usually 
becomes the hero's wife; such is the case, e.g., in Red Sh, Lawn 
Dyarrig, Hookedy-Crookedy, Dough, and Kil Arthur. She is offered 
to the hero in marriage by the Three Young Men in Pd{h), but is 
refused. W descends from a similar source; the Uncle, Gurne- 
manz (the Three Young Men, his sons, are dead), offers his daughter 
Liaze in marriage to Parzival, but she is refused. Wolfram, then, 
did not invent Liaze; she was an integral part of his source. The 
Second Lady had supernatural knowledge and magical possessions. 

' In C, W, and Pd{a) the function of teacher is attributed to the Uncle. How to account 
for this addition I do not see. In Pd the real teachers are the Nine Sorceresses of Gloucester 
(has the nine here any connection with the nine of the nine cousins in SP?), and previous 
students have intimated that this incident in Pd may be due to the influence of the Cuchulain 
tale; the influence of the Cuchulain tale pretty certainly appears in one of the Witch-Uncle 
stories summarized above; cf. the age and fury of Fialan in Fear Dubh, pp. 58-59. 



THE RED KNIGHT- WITCH-UNCLE STORY 7 1 

She appears in Lawn Dyarrig, Hookedy-Crookedy, and Dough, and 
best in Fd{b), where she is called ''Empress of Cristinobyl." She 
meets the hero before he goes to battle, recognizes him, knows all 
about his business, and gives him a magical gift without which he 
could not succeed in his adventures. Some versions seem to com- 
bine the two Women in one, in which case the Sister of the Young 
Men appears before the hero twice. In Red Sh the hero meets 
(only once) a beautiful woman soon after he enters the island; he 
takes her to the ship, and his treacherous companions make off 
with her; she gives him no gifts, but she is the sister of the Young 
Men, whom the hero meets shortly afterward; in variants of Red 
Sh the magical gifts appear. A similar first meeting occurs in 
Ransom, when the hero meets the lady with the dog; the magic 
seems here to reside in the dog. But Lawn Dyarrig is patently a 
variant of Red Sh; and in it the hero meets first a Lady who gives 
him magical gifts, and meets later the Sister (daughter of the pre- 
ceding), a different person. I think Pd{h) is the only version in 
which the hero is said to marry the Second Lady, though in Conall 
his wife is perhaps her equivalent. When the hero first meets the 
woman in Red Sh (she is there the Sister of the Young Men and 
consequently foster sister to the hero), she is holding in her lap the 
head of a dead warrior.^ An incident of this sort in the early form 
of the story is the source from which came the giermaine cosine 
of C, Sigune^ of W, and the foster sister of Pd(a). Perceval met 
the giermaine cosine immediately after he left the Grail castle and 
while he was still in supernatural territory (no one lived anywhere 
near), found her embracing the corpse of a knight, was recognized, 
almost or quite supernaturally, by her (cf. the recognition in, say, 
Faolan), and received from her information and prophecy concern- 
ing his affairs (cf. the information and prophecy of the Empress 
in Pd and the woman in Lawn Dyarrig and Faolan) . In W Sigune 

' In Mananaun the heroine watches over the dead body of the hero until she secures the 
healing water to revive him; in Conall the hero lies down to sleep with his head in the heroine's 
lap and cannot be roused till the time of his "hero's sleep" is past; in SP the hero lies down to 
take a nap with his head in the lap of the Tent Lady, but her husband arrives before he falls 
asleep (wtfg chap. v). Something of this nature appears to have been a part of the story. 

' Golther {op. cit., 204-5) considered SP's Tent Lady of the second meeting a combination 
of Sigune and Jeschute. 



72 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

appeared to Parzival twice, first after his visit to the Tent and before 
he reached court, and secondly after the visit at the Grail castle; 
the first visit is probably not a mere intercalation of Wolfram's, 
but is an inheritance.' 

Before the Red Knight- Witch-Uncle story entered into the mak- 
ing of the Perceval tale, the hero's marriage with the heroine 
(Lufamour-Blancheflur-Condwiramur) had been estabHshed. He 
could not be granted two marriages; and so in C, W, and G the 
difficulty was solved by making the heroine the niece of the Uncle — 
she took over so much of the function of the Sister of the Young 
Men ; and I think it highly probable that both W and G drew from 
C the idea of making the heroine the niece of Gornemans. 

The Witch incident — with its battle against hosts, the excessively 
ugly appearance of the Hag, and its revivifying balm — appears as a 
pretty consistent factor, and retains its form rather more commonly 
than the incident of the Relatives; but even it occurs in variant 
shapes. The usual shape includes the battle against hosts (and the 
death of the Hag's son), the hero's sleep upon the battlefield, the 
midnight appearance of the Hag with her balm, and her death. The 
best versions of the incident in this type are in Red Sh, G, and Ran- 
som. In general if the Hag had a son (or sons), he was probably 
thought of as a magician or a giant, as in Birth of Fin.^ A variant 
of the incident was produced by the substitution of monsters for 
the Hag and her progeny. The incident in this type occurs in Red 
Sh variants and Big Men; sometimes there was just a single monster, 
as in Fionn and Bran. Pd(b), with its ''Addanc," belongs to this 
type. The evolution of variants is, I think, easily to be accounted 
for: if, e.g., the number of sons of the Hag or the number of battles 
was changed to three, the alteration sprang from the tale-teller's 
feeling for symmetry — he sought to balance this portion of the 
incident against the threefoldness of the Three Young Men. In 
Hookedy there is the threefold battle without the Hag or her sons; 

' The significance of the meeting and also the apparent absence of both Women from this 
section of SP will be commented on in the Conclusion. Sigune's mother was made sister of 
Herzeloyde to account for the kinship that had been set up long before. 

' G, which has neither the Insult nor the son of the Hag, makes the Hag herself subject 
to a vague "King of the Waste City"; in Pd{b), where several items appear inverted, the father 
of the Three Young Men is the "King of Tortures." 



THE RED KNIGHT-WITCH-UNCLE STORY 73 

the enemy to be overthrown is an Insulter of the Land- Claimant 
type, leading three armies, one after the other. Usually the Magic 
Balm appears only as a possession of the Hag; in several versions 
it is duplicated, is a possession of the Hag and of the Three Young 
Men too, as in Conall (244), Mananaun, etc.; in Pd(b) it appears 
only in the keeping of the Three Young Men. In the more nearly 
complete form of the incident the Hag's son is not the Insulter. 
In SP the two persons have been combined; in C, W, Pd{a), and G, 
indications are too slight to enable us to decide. The whole of the 
Witch incident is wanting in C, W, and Pd(a) ; SP has a very ema- 
ciated form of it, touching the fuller versions at six points: (i) a 
Witch (2) has a son, (3) is able to revive the dead, (4) is enemy to 
the hero's friends (Relatives), (5) and is slain, (6) with her own 
son's spear; the battle against the Hag's host seems to have dropped 
out, yet it has not dropped so far but that we shall find some of it 
later. One other point: though the Hag's host (with its battle), 
her midnight advent, and her supernatural powers have all dis- 
appeared from C, her distressingly ugly personal appearance has 
remained as a heritage to the Grail Messenger (C, 5981 ff.) and to 
her counterparts in W and Pd. Wauchier, also, has a hideous hag 
(25380-410). 

Death to the Insulter is the punishment for the Insult meted 
out in most of the tales, but not in all; in Conall he is merely ^'con- 
verted" — overthrown and added to the hero's retinue as a traveling 
companion. After telling of his death, most of the tales are silent 
as to the disposition made of his body; it is simply left lying where 
it has fallen; such is the case in Red Sh, Pd(a), W, C, etc. But in 
G, which was intended to provide an end for the unfinished C, the 
Red Knight's corpse was placed in an ivory coffer (we are not told 
by whom), drawn on a barge by a swan back to the Knight's castle, 
and preserved there ten years by the Knight's four sons. Only the 
best of knights (the slayer) could open the casket, and the sons 
knew not its contents. Perceval, entertained at the castle, was 
bidden try to open the casket, and he succeeded; when the corpse 
was seen, the sons felt they must avenge the Knight's death; and 
an encounter by night and by day ensued {Library, 81 ff.). In 
SP and, apparently, in C's source the Knight's body was thrown 



74 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

on a fire and burned. In SP, moreover, the hero burns in the same 
fire the body of the Witch. The latter point Nutt thinks must have 
been in the sources; after quoting two verses from G (see p. 50, 
supra), he adds a footnote: "I cannot but think that these words 
have connection with the incident in the EngKsh Sir Perceval of 
the hero's throwing into the flames and thus destroying his Witch 
enemy." So far I have discovered nothing in the sources to war- 
rant the connection of a burning of the body by the hero with the 
Witch incident; and so I am inclined to think the burning was 
borrowed from the Knight's fate. As to the source of 5P's point 
of the burning of the Knight's body, I have little to suggest. Pos- 
sibly it arose, after the Perceval tale was put together, to account 
for the Witch's failure to use her Balm upon the body, beside whose 
ashes she had stood (see summary of SP). Perhaps there is some 
connection between it and such an incident as the burning of the 
giant's head in Kil Arthur, which looks like a garbled transforma- 
tion scene; there is no transformation in SP; there are two of 
them in Faolan, but no burning.^ After the Insulter has been slain, 
we are told in several tales that he is related to the hero's friends 
or to the hero himself; thus in Red Sk and Ransom he is foster 
brother or only brother to the father of the Three Young Men; 
imcle (or "foster uncle"), then, to the hero (cf. the bespelled Uncle 
in Faolan) . Some such version as a source accounts for Wolfram's 

' In this footnote I venture to summarize part of a tale which has few if any connections 
with the tales I have summarized above, but which has a burning incident just here: 

The Bare-stripping Hangman. — [There are many incidents, among them several using a 
magic balm; at the end this — ] Alastir, the hero, had now finished all he had to do. He there- 
fore returned the way he came, taking with him the King's three daughters he had rescued. 
They reached the castle of the Great Giant of Ben Breck, and found the Giant stretched dead 
on the floor. Alastir seized the Giant's Great Sword, smote oflE his head and his feet as far as 

the knees, tied them up, and took them with him The King looked from his window, 

and saw Alastir coming with the three women, and the Giant's head and feet over his 

shoulder The King inquired what he was going to do with the head and feet. Alastir 

repUed: "Before I eat food or take a drink, thou shalt see that." He gathered fuel, made a 
large, hot fire, and threw the head and feet into the midst of the flame. As soon as the hair 
of the head was singed and the skin of the feet burnt, the very handsomest young man they 
ever beheld sprang out of the fire. The King cried: "Oh, the son of my father and mother 

who was stolen in his childhood!" and he embraced him And all went into the castle. 

[The giant had stolen the King's three daughters. There is no explanation of the young man's 
enchantment, or of why he had stolen his nieces. But, perhaps, the explanation is not diflficult 
to suggest.] (MacDougall, "Folk and Hero Tales of Argyllshire," Waifs and Strays of Celtic 
Tradition, III, 76-112, esp, iio-ii.) 



THE RED KNIGHT- WITCH-UNCLE STORY 75 

exaltation of Ither, the Red Knight. Ither is nephew of Uther 
Pendragon, best of knights, and near kinsman to Parzival. With 
the friendship between Ither atid Gahmuret, pointed out in chap- 
ter, I, cf. the friendship between the Insulter and the hero in 
Conall; that between Etlym, a very red knight, and Peredur in 
Pd{h) ; and cf . the study of Gahmuret in chapter IV. 

A brief recapitulation will throw some light on source and 
chronology. 

C, not possessing them, cannot have been the source of the Three 
Young Men, the Witch, the Enmity between the Young Men and 
the Witch, nor the Magic Balm. Yet these are widely and closely 
associated with the Insulting (or Red) Knight and the Uncle. 

W possesses more items, but not enough to have served as a 
source for the later ( ?) versions. 

G, next in age, cannot have been the source, since it wants ( ?) 
the Witch's son and omits the incident of the Insult. Moreover, 
Gerbert did not invent either (a) the Magic Balm, for that appears 
in Fierabras^ (ca. a.d. 1170); or (b) extremely ugly carlins; cf., 
for one, the Loathly Damsel of C, 5981 ff. He was left then only 
the combination of the two and the enmity between the Witch and 
Perceval's friend. G is now found in only two MSS, and appears 
never to have been very widely known. That G should have been 
the starting-place for the widely current Carlin and her balm, and 
that 5P's source drew upon G for the two matters and dislocated 
the C tale, in order to insert them, is not believable; and even if 
G could thus account for SP, still Red Sh, Pd(b), Conall, and the 
other versions would be left unaccounted for. 

Neither Pd nor SP, because of their date of composition and 
because of their paucity of material, can have been the source. 

There never was, I believe, any single MS source, yet common 
source there was; for the interpretation of '^ common source" the 
reader is referred to the Conclusion, infra. 

The Red Knight- Witch-Uncle ^' story" pretty certainly had a 
separate existence. The evidence of the tales summarized shows 

' Cf. my note on the Balm in Mod. Lang. Notes, April, igio. 



76 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

that the incidents of this story were not attributed only to Perceval, 
that they were not associated with a hero of any one particular 
name, and that the story freely occurred without having prefixed 
to it those incidents that precede it in the Perceval tale. Some of 
the tales lead us to believe that the four incidents in the story, 
with a fifth, the hero's marriage, added, constituted much the larger 
part of the action, or plot; i.e., that with slight changes the story 
could, and did, stand by itself as an entity, as a "tale," examples 
being Red Sh, Ransom, etc. 

And the story was taken up bodily and incorporated, with such 
filing and dovetailing as was necessary, into a frame-tale, the result 
being the Perceval tale. The dovetailing and the soldering at the 
joints are still discernible. In a general way, the frame-tale was 
this : a lad reared in a forest by his widowed mother heard of knightly 
life, went to court, and was given the adventure of rescuing a lady, 
whereby he won for himself a wife, a kingdom, and much fame. 
The incorporated tale or story ran thus : a youth despised at court 
went with others to avenge an insult to the king, was the only one 
to succeed, and restored the king's loss, having meantime passed 
through adventures by which he won a beautiful wife, fame, and 
honor at court. The frame-tale is represented approximately by 
Fool and Card; the incorporated story, though perhaps over- 
elaborately, by Red Sh. The modern folk- tales show how easy 
and common such an evolution was. Ample warrant for beheving 
in such a process of incorporation lies in Pd; for PdQ)) is just the 
story (in a variant form and slightly amplified) inserted bodily 
and without attempt at dovetailing into Pd(a), the frame- tale. 
Indeed, Pd is most remarkable. It is a repeater. In the first 
place, Pd(a), like 5P, C, and W, is the result of the incorporation 
of the Red Knight- Witch-Uncle story into a frame- tale; and in the 
second place, Pd(a), acting as a frame-tale, has reincorporated into 
itself the same story, Pd{h), in a variant form. SP affords us a 
glimpse of the solder, indicating what incident of the enveloping 
tale perished from C, W, and Pd{a) after its service as a nexus for 
the incorporated story. The messenger who, in SP, finds Perceval 
at his Uncle's hall, does not appear in C (where logical connection 
between events has been rejected) ; and he is not more indispensable 



THE RED KNIGHT- WITCH-UNCLE STORY 77 

in SP than in C. But the romance norm was for a messenger to 
come before the king to request aid;^ the king then assigned the 
adventure to one of his knights. The frame-tale was doubtless 
of this type, and it was the appearance of this messenger before 
the king that gave way to the appearance of the knight who 
insulted Arthur. Again, at the end of the incorporated story the 
solder shows; in SP the hero instead of giving aid to his Cousins, 
who do not need it, goes to the aid of the Besieged Lady; his send- 
ing the Three Young Men back home is another piece; in C still 
another bit of solder appears in the transference of the Uncle's 
kinship from the hero to the heroine; in W we have the appear- 
ance of Liaze and the death of one of her three brothers (the Three 
Young Men) in defending the Besieged Lady. 

The discussion of the Battle against the Hag's host is continued 
in the next chapter. And in the Conclusion we shall see what are 
the results if we deduct the incorporated portions from the Perceval 
tale and compare the remainder (the frame-tale) with tales of other 
heroes. 

' The reader will easily recall examples: the Beautiful-Unknown group; Malory's "Gar- 
eth"; the Loathly Damsel in C, Cundrie in W; Manessier, 45183 fif.; Potvin, I, 185, etc. Cf., 
further, A. C. L. Brown, "The Knight of the Lion," Pub. Mod. Lang. Assn., XX, p. 677, n. 1. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE RELIEF OF THE BESIEGED LADY 

C'tHE SARACEN INFLUENCE") 
Fourteenth Incident: The Messenger at Court 
I. SP, 1057-1124. 
11. Pd, 256. 

III. C, 3885-4087, 5376-5539; W, IV, 803-31, 1147-1287; V, 1503— 
VI, 38. 

Fifteenth Incident: The First Battle 

A. The Arrival at the Castle 

I. SP, 1125-44. 

II. C, 2891-2926; Wj IV, 1-106; Pd, 256. 

B. The Fighting 

I. SP, 1145-1212. 

II. Pd, 258-59. 

III. C, 3330-3529; W, IV, 500-602. 

Sixteenth Incident: The Hero Enters the Besieged Castle 

I. SP, 1 2 13-1340. 
II. C, 2927-3329; W, IV, 107-499; Pd, 256-58. 

Seventeenth Incident: The Second Battle 
I. SP, 1341-80. 
II. Pd, 259. 
m. C, 3530-3768; W, IV, 603-880. 

[Eighteenth Incident: Perceval and Gawain Encounter 
I. SP, 1381-1524. 

IL T^,XIII, i525-XIV,432. 

C, Pd, wanting.] 

[Nineteenth Incident: King Arthur Entertained in the Lady's Castle 

I. SP, 1525-1608. 

C, W, Pd, wanting.] 

Twentieth Incident: The Third Battle 

I. SP, 1609-17 28. 

II. Pd, 259-60. 

III. C, 3769-3923; 'W, IV, 903-1092. 

78 



THE RELIEF OF THE BESIEGED LADY 79 

[Twenty-first Incident: The Hero Marries the Rescued Lady 

I. SP, 1729-72; W, IV, 610-719; XVI, 374ff.; G, 182 f., 189 ff., 210. 
C, Pd, wanting.] 

Twenty-second Incident: The |Iero Leaves the Lady 

L SP, 1773-1816. 

11. C, 4088-4162; W, IV, 1 288-1338. 
III. Pd, 261. 

The Saracen Influence 

SP, 973-1816; W, 1, 452 — II, 79; Conall, 286-94; Saudan Og, 58-92; 
Pd{h), 274, 278-81. 

This chapter is devoted to the event of the reHef of a maiden 
from the too-pressing suit of an unwelcome warrior. The hero 
frees her, and, according to two of the versions that contain the 
account, marries her; in the two other versions he either never 
marries or marries someone else. 

The account of SP includes, nominally, nine incidents, but 
discussion of three of them will be postponed to the next chapter. 
C will be summarized and compared with SP, as usual. W and 
Pd do not manifest such variations from the account of C as to 
make it necessary to summarize them. 

Even those scholars who think that SP is dependent mainly or 
largely on C, see that from this point forward the two accounts 
diverge more and more. The first thing this chapter presents is a 
statement of their similarities and their divergences. The second 
is a presentation (at the risk of some repetition) of evidence that 
this portion of the tale has suffered contamination from the Red 
Knight-Witch-Uncle story. The third thing is a discussion of 
what I may term loosely the Saracen Influence, in which I set 
forth certain grounds for believing that there is consanguinity 
between this portion of SP, Book I of W, and the concluding parts 
of Conall. 

The nine incidents of SP are as follows: 

XIV. Perceval went from his Uncle's Hall to the relief of the Lady, and 
the messenger continued to the court to secure the aid of the King. Arthur 
first refused to go; but when the messenger mentioned Perceval, Arthur 
became interested, and, calling three of his best knights, set out to overtake the 



8o SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

hero. XV. Perceval made his way to the castle, and in the night came unex- 
pectedly upon the night army of the besiegers, all of whom he slew before day- 
light, escaping himself unharmed. Then he lay down beside the castle (city ?) 
wall and slept. XVI. Next morning the Lady found her enemies slain and 
saw Perceval lying asleep. She sent her chamberlain to invite Perceval into 
the castle. He went and was richly entertained. XVII. While all in the 
castle were dining, a second army (the day army) almost captured the city. 
Perceval armed himself, attacked them, and slew every one. XVIII. Glan- 
cing around, Perceval observed four knights approaching. He supposed them 
the Sowdane and his companions, and rode against them. They were really 
Arthur and his knights. It fell to Gawain's lot to encounter Perceval. After 
a short and sharp joust, the two recognized each other. XIX. The King 
and his three knights were then entertained in Lufamour's castle. XX. 
Next day the Sowdane came before the castle wall, offered defiance, and was 
encountered and slain by Perceval. XXI. The hero married the Lady and 
dwelt with her for a year. XXII. After that he departed to go in search of 
his Mother.^ 

The C account (2 89 1-4 162) goes thus: 

^ Perceval left the castle of Gornemans to go in search of his mother, and 
came, a distance thence, quite accidentally to a castle. A knock at the castle 
gate procured a night's lodging for him. % After a melancholy supper he was 
shown to his bed, but at midnight he was roused by weeping and saw beside 
him the Lady of the castle, who had come to seek his advice. She was in dis- 
tress because her castle was besieged by Clamadex, who sought to marry her. 
Her garrison could hold out only a day or two longer, weakened by fighting and 

* The Lady is in SP Luf amour, whose father, "erne" (uncle), and brothers (989-91) have 
been slain by the Sowdane, leaving her the only survivor of the family; in C Blancheflur (3593), 
niece of Gornemans (3093), niece of other uncles, one of whom is "pious" (3103, etc.), and her 
father has been slain by Guigrenons (3452-56) ; in W Condwiramur(s) (cf . Bartsch's note to Book 

III, 1856, = " Coin de voire amors"), niece of Gurnemanz (daughter of his sister, IV, 315), 
and niece of two holy men (Kyot and Manpfiljot, brothers of the Lady's father, Tampentiere, 

IV, 219 ff., 327 ff.); in Pd nameless, but her father had had the best earldom in the realm; in 
G niece of Gurnemans (Potvin, VI, 191). In SP (1339, 1560, etc.) and W (IV, 283) she is 
a queen. In C a brother (frere giermain) of Gornemans has been slain by Guigrenons (3468-85); 
in W, a son of Gurnemanz (Schentaflur, IV, 564-65). 

The Besieger is in SP a Sowdane ( = Sultan), Gollerothirame; in C Clamadius (King of 
the Isles) and Guigrenons (his seneschal) ; in W Clamide and Kingrun (his seneschal) ; in Pd 
an earl (son of an earl) and two of his household oflficers. Perlesvaus has a knight Clamados des 
Onbres, son of the Red Knight (not the Red Knight [ ?] of SP, C, etc.) slain by Perceval before 
he leaves the home forest (Potvin, I, 117 fif.). 

In C the siege has lasted a winter and a summer (and now it is spring). 

The castle besieged is in SP in Maiden Land ( ? = Castle of Maidens, Edinburgh, Scot- 
land); in C Beaurepaire; in W Pelrepeire, in the kingdom of Brobarz (IV, 3S-36); in G Bel- 
repaire. Cf. a Castle of Maidens in Wauchier (26866-67); in Fergus (see also "Introduction," 
Martin's ed., p. xix.) In Bel Inconnu (5360), BI comes to the Castle of Maidens. Cf ., also, 
the Castle of Maidens in Pierre de Langtoft {Rerum Brit. Med. Aevi Scrip., I, 31); etc. 



THE RELIEF OF THE BESIEGED LADY 8 1 

reduced to extremity by a rigorous famine. Perceval promised her aid, and 
comforted her. *[[ Next morning Perceval armed and rode to where Guingre- 
nons^ (seneschal of Clamadex) sat before his tent. After a battle in which the 
seneschal was hurt, he — the seneschal — was forced to beg for mercy; he pleaded, 
however, not to be sent to either Blancheflur or Gornemans, who would have 
him put to death because of the harm he had done them. He was sent to 
King Arthur. ^ Clamadex rejoining his army was surprised to learn of the 
fate of Guingrenons. At the advice of an old knight, he stormed the castle 
with his army, but was repulsed. Then he decided to starve the garrison, 
but paroled prisoners soon told him the famine had been relieved by the arrival 
of a ship loaded with provisions. ^ Clamadex sent to the castle to challenge 
any champion to single combat. Perceval rode against him, and after a great 
struggle forced him to promise, as the seneschal had done, to free his prisoners, 
to go with a message to Arthur's court, and to cease annoying Blancheflur. 
% Perceval tarried with Blancheflur for a short while. ][ Then remembering 
his mother, he set off to find her, promising to return to Blancheflur whether 

he found his mother alive or dead % [After several intervening incidents 

have been recounted] the arrival and stories of the knights Perceval has 
overthrown (Guingrenons, Clamadex, and Orguellous^) arouse Arthur to a 
determination to go to seek Perceval (cf. 11. 5376-5539). 

Of the nine incidents of SP, six, more or less the same, appear 
in C. These two versions and W and Pd are held together by two 
fundamental agreements: the Lady to be rescued is besieged by 
human beings who make no use of magic (in C, W, and Pd they are 
knights of the normal sort, and in SP, though Saracens, they are 
but slightly removed from such) ; and the rescue is secured by three 
battles. 

But even though in general outline SP and C show agreements, 
they also show marked differences in both substance and sequence 
of events. Four of the most noticeable differences may be pointed 
out. They are first stated here in a group, and later discussed 
separately, (i) Three of the nine incidents do not occur in C 
at all — the battle with Gawain, the entertainment of the King, 
and the marriage to the Besieged Lady. Pd likewise lacks these 
three incidents; W has the marriage, and at a much later place in 
the tale the joust with Gawain, but not the entertainment of the 
King. (2) In SP Arthur is roused to a determination to seek Perce- 

' The spelling of proper names varies in C. I have not attempted to make it uniform. 
' Orguellous is the Tent Lord, whose story comes later; cf. chap. v. 



82 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

val by the coming of Luf amour's messenger; in C (and W) he sets 
out to seek the hero only after the arrival of the Besiegers, whom 
Perceval has conquered and sent to court with messages. (3) 
SP and C differ in the time (of day) and the nature of the first 
battle. (4) The nature of the Besieger and his followers is different 
in the two accounts. 

1. Of the three incidents not occurring in C two are reserved for, 
discussion in chapter V, infra, because they appear to be parts of a 
story taken up there. The marriage between hero and heroine 
shows only the more clearly what we have observed many times 
already: the affinity between SP and W. In (the unfinished) 
C Perceval does not marry the Besieged Lady; in SP, W, and G 
he does. Concerning the offspring of the marriage SP is silent; 
but W and G show agreements so substantial as to prove them taken 
the one from the other or both from a common and almost immedi- 
ate source. 

2. The suggestion has been made by some students that 5P's 
messenger^ is a reminiscence of the knights Perceval overthrows — 
in other versions — and sends to Arthur. The first knights so to 
be treated in C are the Besiegers; and it is because of their reports 
of the hero's valorous deeds that the King wishes to add Perceval 
to his household. The incident there is well motivated. But in 
SP the motivation is bad enough to arouse suspicion; for Gawain 
has reported Perceval's overthrow of the Red Knight, and the 
messenger has no new evidence of the hero's prowess; yet King 
Arthur leaves a sick-bed to go in search of him. The messenger 
in SP is doubtless, as I have already stated, preserved from the 
form of the tale as it was before the Red Knight- Witch-Uncle story 

' In SP the King is at Bath when Lufamour's messenger arrives seeking his aid, which 
Arthur, being sick, refuses; the messenger speaks of a knight, and when upon inquiry Arthur 
learns that Perceval has started to the reUef of the Lady, he rises, takes three knights with him, 
and rides after Perceval. In C, after Perceval has relieved the Besieged Lady and reinstated 
the Tent Lady (4865-5372, a later incident; cf. infra), the knights he has overthrown come to 
court, at CarUon, with Perceval's messages; upon the arrival of the third (Li Orguellous, the 
Tent Lord), Arthur is roused to seek Perceval. In W the account is much the same. In Pd 
the hero overthrows eighteen knights before he comes near the Besieged Castle, and sends them 
to court, whereupon Arthur determines to search all the island for him. 

Carebedd {SP, io62)=Caer Badon, the City of Baths; cf. for one reference, Trevisa's 
Higden, Polychronicon (Lond., Longmans Green & Co., 1869), p. 55, "Caerbadown, {)at is. 
Bate 



THE RELIEF OF THE BESIEGED LADY 83 

was incorporated. When the Red Knight-Witch-Uncle story 
was inserted, the appearance of the Red Knight replaced the arrival 
of the messenger. In the Grail group the Lady's messenger disap- 
peared altogether. This explanation leaves a seeming difficulty: 
in the earlier form of the tale how did the King learn of the hero's 
whereabouts ? But the difficulty is only a seeming one : in C the 
news the King hears is that Perceval has succeeded in his adventure ; 
and if we turn to Card, we find that Carduino sent a messenger to 
court to announce his success in freeing the enchanted lady,^ and 
that in consequence Arthur sent an embassy to him. In SP, as 
stated above, the motivation is bad; and the reason is that ^P's 
messenger is in part a relic of the second messenger, who announced 
success. In the earlier form of the tale doubtless the Besiegers were 
all destroyed, as in SP and Card, and there were two messengers. 
Under the refining hand of Crestien or his predecessor, the Besiegers 
were made into fine knights, were preserved alive, and were sub- 
stituted for the messenger of victory as envoys to court. Thus, 
instead of ^P's messenger being a reminiscence of the conquered 
knights of C, the latter are a reminiscence of a messenger whose 
existence is but dimly hinted at in SP. The disappearance of the 
second messenger from SP, or the more probable coalescence of the 
two messengers, is due to the incorporation into the tale of another 
story, which is to be considered in the next chapter. 

3. In C, after Perceval has approached the Besieged Castle and 
spent a night there without having seen a besieger, he goes out in 
the morning after breakfast time, and does battle against Guigre- 
nons ; and the two knights observe all the conventions of chivalry : 
in SP the hero, approaching the castle for the first time, rides at 
dusk unsuspectingly into the midst of the camp of the night army^ 
of the besiegers, is challenged, lays about him with more than 

' The statement in Card (second canto, Ixvi-lxviii) is not made distinctly, but the implica- 
tion is indubitable. 

' The Sowdane's army consists of twenty score men, eleven score to guard by night and 
ten score (pace the arithmetician) by day; at present the Sowdane is away hunting (SP, 1133- 
38). Crestien (3505-7, 3604-14) intimates — though none too clearly — that the besiegers 
are in two armies. W, Uke SP, announces plainly that the besieging army is in two divisions 
(IV, 731-36, 764-65). The whereabouts of SP's day army are not stated; it vanishes. The 
phenomenon is perhaps due to the influence of the magic army of the other story, which, slain 
by day, was revived by night and ready for battle next day. 



84 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

knightly vigor, slays eleven score men, and lies down to sleep till 
daylight. The details are so different that, except in the broadest 
outline, the two accounts are not comparable. Neither is drawn 
from the other. The source of SP^s account, however, is easy to 
see.' We have here contamination from the story of the preceding 
chapter. It will be recalled that in the more nearly complete 
form of the Red Knight- Witch-Uncle story the hero, after he has 
been entertained by his Relatives and heard the story of their 
long-drawn-out battle, goes out alone to battle against their enemies 
(forty in G, over a hundred in Red Sh, hosts in other tales), slays 
them all, lies down by night to sleep on the battlefield, in the middle 
of the night is roused by the Crone, whom he slays, and later is 
found by his Relatives, who lead him to their home (hall, castle, 
or city). Now compare the details in SP. In the Red Knight- 
Witch-Uncle portion of the English tale, the hero meets and slays 
the Witch in the daytime (the previous night's history is a mystery) 
before he meets the Uncle, and in that portion SP presents no battle 
against a host. Next he visits the home of the Uncle and the Young 
Men, learns of a long-drawn-out contest (Lufamour's, told by her 
messenger — a substitute for the Relatives', told by themselves), 
sets off to assist, comes upon a host whom he slays in the night time, 
lies down on the battlefield, and is later found by Hatlayne,* who 
leads him into the Lady's castle. SP, then, shows clearly the con- 
tamination^ of one story with the other: but C is, I believe, not 
without faint traces of it, very faint, yet sufficient to warrant us in 

' Various romances of the Arthur and of the Charlemagne cycles describe battles slightly 
like that of SP. Guy of Warwick's deeds against the Saracens are as wonderful. The Great Fool, 
in O'Daly's version, overthrows seven score guardians of a fair lady, and takes the lady away. 
An account approaching still nearer is that of the titular hero's battle at night against great 
numbers in Sir Degrevani (1553 ff., Thornton Romances). Sowdanes and giants occur plenti- 
fully in the Charlemagne cycle. But I have found in these tales no incidents especially Uke 
those in SP. 

'With Hatlayne (SP, 1261-64) cf. the Chastelayne of Morie Arthure {E.E.T.S., No. 8, 
reprint, 1871), 11. 2952, 3028, and Branscheid's note in Anglia, VIII, Anzeiger, 215, n. 4. 

^ The contamination mentioned here does not indicate that SP's ancestor came twice into 
contact with the early form of the Red Knight-Witch-Uncle story. If any early form of the Per- 
ceval tale contained sufficient material to supply both G and the Red Knight-Witch-Uncle portion 
of SP, it contained an abundance for this battle. And the confusion that we perceive in the 
Red Knight- Witch-Uncle portion of SP already is decreased rather than* increased by this 
fragment of it we find in another place. 



THE RELIEF OF THE BESIEGED LADY 85 

thinking that SP and C drew this portion of themselves from a com- 
mon parentage. The kinship has been transferred: Gornemans 
is uncle to Blancheflur; and Guigrenons, explaining his refusal 
(when Perceval has conquered him) to go as prisoner to Gornemans, 
says he was at the death of Blancheflur's father and was the slayer 
of one of Gornemans' brothers (''freres giermains") in this war (3452- 
85). One is compelled to wonder if the-^'freres giermains" was not 
really a remnant from the "foster brothers" of the hero in the Red 
Knight- Witch-Uncle story. In C Gornemans is not (?) said to 
have had sons, but in W he has had three, and Kingrun acknowledges 
himself slayer of one of them (IV, 564-65, 1046-52). The long 
duration of the contest waged by the foster brothers (G and Red Sh) 
had a raison cfetre; the lengthiness of the siege of Blancheflur may 
be a coincidence, but it is more likely that it is a reminiscence of the 
long-drawn-out combat of the Relatives. Unfortunately, however, 
the two forces that evidently were at work in C (or its source) — 
the excision of magic and the refinement of rudeness — have left 
little testimony as to source; the incident has been conventionalized. 

The accounts of the second and third battles in SP and C are 
rather more comparable than those of the first battle, but here SP 
stands closer to W than to C. 

4. The fourth difference between SP and C leads to a discussion 
of the '^ Saracen influence." In SP the Besiegers are under a 
single leader, the Sowdane (Sultan) Gollerothirame ;^ and his 
followers are Saracens, arranged in two divisions, one to guard by 
day, the other by night. In C there are two leaders, Clamadex 
and his seneschal, Guigrenons; and their followers are ordinary 
men of the country, who may be divided into two armies. (Cres- 
tien's statement is not very clear; in W there is certainly the two- 
fold division.) Although Clamadex is nominally the leader, Gui- 
grenons seems to be the one who has played the important r61e 
in the past and merely-hinted-at events. In Pd the Welsh con- 
vention has developed three leaders, and the relief of the Lady 
has become a three days' tournament. 

' Though not mentioned here, GoUerothirame's brother, a heathen giant, occurs later in 
SP. See chap, v, infra. Whether the one-leader type of SP or the two-leader type of C is 
the older I see no way of telling. 



86 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

The *' Saracen influence" must rely, for the proof of its existence, 
upon portions of four tales — SP, W, Conall, Saudan Og — and a 
few allusions in others. The material may first be summarized. 

SP. — % In Maiden Land ( = Scotland) lived Luf amour, mistress of a city 
which was being besieged by Gollerothirame, a Saracen sowdane, who wished 
to marry her. The besieging army was divided, half being on guard by night, 
half by day. The Sowdane was just now absent. ^ Perceval arrived before 
the Saracen army at night. He rode into their midst and fought until he had 
slain every foe. Then he lay down to sleep beside the city (castle) w^aU. 
^ Early in the morning he was perceived by Lufamour, who sent her chamber- 
lain to invite him to enter the court. He entered and was richly entertained 
by Lufamour, who promised to marry him if he would slay the Sowdane. 
% Later, the day army attacked town and castle. Perceval had eaten but 
little, but assisted by Lufamour, he armed himself, called for his steed, went 
out to battle, and by noon had slain all his enemies. ^ After that he and 
Gawain fought tiU they recognized each other. The two were kin, either nephew 
and uncle or sons of sisters. ^ Perceval conducted Arthur and his company 
to the castle, and all were entertained by Lufamour. ^ Next morning Gol- 
lerothirame cried a challenge before the castle. Perceval met him and slew 
him. ^ The hero returned to the castle, and he and Lufamour were married. 
He dwelt with her a year, and then left to go seek his mother in his earlier home. 

W. — ^ In the land of the Moors lived Queen Belakane, in the city of Patela- 
munt, which was being besieged by Friedebrand, Prince of Scotland, to avenge 
the death of his cousin Eisenhart, who had been the lover of Belakane but 
had been accidentally slain in a joust with one of Belakane's princes, neither 
recognizing the other. The besiegers were divided, one part being the Scotch 
army accompanied by certain Frenchmen, the other the army of Moors. 
^ Gahmuret, seeking adventures, landed in the harbor below Belakane's palace. 
He entered the town and was richly provided for. The Queen invited him to 
her castle, and when he appeared in state, requested his aid. The situation 
was explained to him, and he promised his help. The Burggrave explained 
that Heuteger came daily before the city wall to challenge any one of the 
besieged to joust with him. That evening at supper time the Queen and her 
maidens came to Gahmuret's lodging and served him. ^ After a night of 
restlessness (because of desire to fight and love for Belakane) Gahmuret armed 
and rode out before the city. Heuteger approached. The Queen watched 
the conflict from her window.^ Heuteger was unhorsed, wounded, and forced 
to surrender. ^ Shortly afterward Gaschier was overthrown in like manner, 
and sent to bid the Scotch army cease its attack. ^ Kailet, a relative of Gahmu- 
ret, was forced by Gaschier to refrain from any joust against Gahmuret. ^ On 
a fresh steed Gahmuret went before the Moorish army, overthrew its com- 

' Cf. the similar statement in SP, 1390-1400; the item, however, is a commonplace. 



THE RELIEF OF THE BESIEGED LADY 87 

mander Rassalig, and compelled him to stop the advance of the Moorish army. 
By night he had overthrown twenty-four knights. ^ Gahmuret, re-entering 
the town, was conducted by the Queen to the palace, and the two embraced. 
Soon they were married. Shortly before the time for the birth of a son, 

Gahmuret left his wife to return to his earlier home ^ The hero came 

before Kanvoleis, and there erected the tent he had brought from the East. 
It had belonged to Isenhart, and was very splendid [and possessed magic 
qualities ( ?)]. 

Condi. — ^ The King of lubhar was being attacked by the Turks, whose 
leader was the "Big Turk." The king had for allies the king of Eirinn (who 
had married his sister) and his two older sons. The youngest son, Conall, 
had been left in Eirinn. ^ When a time had passed and Conall had heard 
nothing of his father, he determined to go and seek him. He was accompanied 
by his minstrel and by two champions, of whom one was the king of Scotland, 
the other Garna Sgiathlais, king of Spain. ^ When they reached lubhar, 
the fighting^ was going on. ConaU and Duanach (his minstrel — the champions 
have disappeared for the time being) went to the hostelry; after eating supper 
they went to bed. ^ Next morning they were aroused by the sound of battle. 
Conall went out and fought, mowing down Turks like thistles. A Big Turk 
slew the men of lubhar in like manner. Conall and the Big Turk met, and 
Conall slew him. The living Turks fled, and the men of lubhar slew all they 
could overtake. \ Conall and Duanach returned to their hostelry, ate, and 
went to bed, thinking the war ended by the slaughter of the Turks. ^ Next 
morning, however, the battle had to be fought over. Again Conall slew the 
Big Turk, and the other Turks fled. ^ That night the king of lubhar, having 
decided that Conall must be his sister's son (how he knew is not told), went to 
his hostelry to inquire about him. Conall was asleep, Duanach refused to 
wake him, and so the king left a message: "Tell Conall .... that his 
mother's brother came to visit him, and that he wishes to see him at the house 
of the king of lubhar tomorrow." [^ The third day's battle has been sum- 
marized in chap, iii, p. 53.] ^ The king of Eirinn took Conall before the king 

of lubhar No less would sufiice the brother of Conall's mother than that 

Conall should be crowned king of the realm of lubhar. The nobles of the 
realm were gathered, a great feast was made, and Conall was crowned king 
over the lubhair; but he did not stay in that realm. With his father and his 
friends he returned to the island where he had left his love (Breast of Light), 
took her aboard ship, and returned to Eirinn, his earlier home. 

Saudan Og and Young Conal (a variant of Conall). — ^ Ri na Durkach (the 
King of the Turks) lived long in Erin, where he had one son, Saudan Og. 
When twenty years old, Saudan Og went to Spain to marry the daughter of 

' This battle was of no service to Conall in winning his wife. He won her (much earlier) 
by a single-handed combat against hundreds of warriors who guarded her tower. She was 
connected closely with Beinn Eideinn, or Edinburgh apparently. Campbell (III, 216, note) 
considers the geography hopelessly mixed. 



88 SIR PERCEVAL OE GALLES 

the King of Spain, with or against the consent of that king. ^ The latter sent 
messengers to Ri Fohin, Ri Laian, and Conal Gulban to ask their aid, and the 
three kings sailed from Eirinn to Spain. When leaving, Gulban took his two 
older sons with him, and left the youngest (named Conal, like his father) to 
guard the kingdom. ^ At the end of a year and a day, young Conal set off to 
seek a wife. He came to the Yellow King's castle and slew all the fighting men 
and then the Yellow King himself. He entered the castle by springing through 
an upper window, and there was cured of his wounds by the Yellow King's 
daughter, who bathed him in the water from a magic well that was in the castle. 
The daughter went with Conal; they came to the foot of a wild mountain 
(Beann Edain), and Conal had to sleep. He lay with his head in the lady's 
lap for three days and two nights. Then came the High King of the World and 
took the lady away, but not before she had written a letter explaining all to 
Conal. Four days later Conal had finished his "hero's sleep," roused, and set 
off to recover his bride. ^ He acquired for Traveling Companions Donach the 
Druid, two (out of three) brothers, and their sister; then another, the Short 
Dun Champion, who was one of another set of three brothers. ^ Conal and 
his companions found the castle of the High King of the World, recovered the 
bride, slew the High Eling, and started back home. ^ "On their way, where 
should they sail but along the coast of Spain?" They saw three castles and 
a herd of cattle grazing near them. ^ One after the other, the two brothers 
went to ask why the castles were built near together, and the herdsman by 
magic turned them to stone. Next Conal went, and his strength was greater 
than the herdsman's magic; Conal overpowered him, and forced him to tell 
his story. ^ The herdsman recognized Conal, explained that he and Conal 
were brothers, restored the two bewitched Companions from stone to life, and 
told his story: " Saudan Og arrived in Spain the day before we did, and he had 
one-third of the kingdom taken before us. We went against him the following 
day, and kept him inside that third, and we have neither gained nor lost since. 
The King of Spain had a castle here: my father and the King of Leinster built 
a second castle near that; Saudan Og built the third near the two, for himself 
and his men, and that is why the castles are here. We are ever since in battle; 
Saudan has one-third, and we the rest of Spain." ^ Conal slew the Saudan the 
next day, and all his forces. ^ He provided wives for his brothers and Com- 
panions, and all returned to Erin. End. 

(The last of the tale is greatly condensed. The Hag and her Balsam are 
absent, and the battle is abbreviated into nothingness. But the "Saracen 
Influence" is much in evidence. And note how the hero has, in a sense, given 
his own name to his father, just as happened in SP.) J. Curtin, Hero Tales 
of Ireland, 58-92. 

A portion of Pd{h), though, in its present shape at least, it does 
not belong with this group, has threads of connection with these 
tales; a summary may be placed here for reference. 



THE RELIEF OF THE BESIEGED LADY 89 

j[ Peredur left the home of the Three Young Men to go to fight their battle 
against the Addanc. ^On the way he found a beautiful Lady seated on a mound, 
who knew his purpose and gave him a stone of victory that enabled him to win 
his contest. She made him promise to seek her afterward, "seek towards India" ; 
and then she vanished. ^ After a set of adventures, Peredur came to the valley 
of a river, and found there a vast multitude of tents. He lodged with a miller 
and learned from him that " the Empress of Cristinobyl the Great" was holding 
tournament to select the most valiant of men for her husband. He spent that 
night with the miller, and the next day went out to behold the tournament 
(and the Empress), but did no fighting. He did the same the second and the 
third day. ^ On the fourth day he entered the tournament ; he fought (several 
days ?) till he overthrew all. ^ The Empress sent to him and asked him to 
visit her. Three embassies he refused. A wise man sought him and prevailed 
upon him to go. Two days he visited her in her tent. ^ On the second day, 
while he and she were discoursing courteously, a Black Man entered, bearing a 
goblet full of wine, which he gave to the Empress with the request that she give 
it to no man who would not fight with him for it. Peredur asked for it, and 
drank the wine. ^ A second and larger Black Man soon repeated the scene. 
^ Shortly afterward "a rough-looking, crisp-haired man, taller than either 
of the others," came with a bowl of wine, and the scene was repeated. *[[ That 
night Peredur returned to his lodging; next morning he went to a meadow, 
and slew all three men. ^ "And Peredur was entertained by the empress 
fourteen years, as the story relates." 

Before pointing out the grounds for a belief in a common ancestry 
of some sort for these accounts, I may mention two barriers in the 
way of an argument: the materials (only four tales, and one of 
them a variant of another) are too scanty to furnish evidence upon 
which we may rely with certainty; and the account in each of the 
four tales has been subjected to the influence of other stories in 
such a way as to distort it. The Crusading influence upon Wolf- 
ram's tale has been insisted on time and again. SP's account of 
the relief of the Besieged Lady has certainly been contaminated 
with the battle in the Red Knight- Witch-Uncle story — or perhaps 
it will be clearer to say that the latter battle was altered when it 
was incorporated into the account of the siege. And the Conall 
battle suffered in the process of its incorporation into a long frame- 
tale. The divergences are apparent, and yet it is highly probable 
that the four accounts revert to the same source. 

A table will not help us, and so a short recapitulation may be 
substituted. 



go SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

In SP the hero frees Lufamour, the Scotch Lady, in Scotland 
(Maydene Land), besieged by Saracens. In Conall the hero cap- 
tures Breast of Light, the Lady of Beinn Eideinn (Edinburgh?), 
from her tower strongly guarded; then he goes, accompanied by 
the kings of Scotland and Spain, to the realm of lubhar to free his 
relatives^ (his father, his two brothers, and his uncle, the King of 
lubhar) from the Turks. In W the hero's father frees Belakane, 
the Moorish Lady, in Moorish (Saracen) land, besieged by Moors 
and the Scotch under Friedebrand, Prince of Scotland, accompanied 
by certain Spaniards and Frenchmen, one of whom, at any rate, 
is kin to the rescuer. In Saudan Og the hero .... goes to Spain, 
accompanied by Traveling Companions, and there slays Saudan Og, 
the Young Sultan, son of the King of the Turks. 

In SP the adventure is assigned to the hero alone; in Conall, 
jointly, in a way, to the hero (accompanied by the kings of Scot- 
land and Spain) and his father, though earlier in the tale we have 
been told that the father visited this same country and found there 
his wife, the hero's mother; in W it is assigned wholly to the father, 
and the offspring of the marriage is half-brother to the hero.^ P^ pre- 
sents an odd switching around of parts: the Lady is the Saracen, 
the French and Spanish Traveling Companions have been trans- 
ferred from the hero to his enemies, and one of his enemies is his 
kinsman. 

In SP, W, Conall, and Pd(b) the hero goes from the home of his 
relatives to engage in this battle: from the home of Uncle and 
Cousins in SP; of his only brother. King Galoes (to find a relative 
among his enemies), in W; of his Uncle in Conall; of the Three 
Young Men (= foster brothers) at the instruction of the Empress 
in Pd{b). 

In each case the battle is in three parts or fought on three days. 

The similarity is evident. That the accounts are related seems 
indubitable. And the common source can perhaps be suggested 
with a fair degree of certainty. There are several items to be fol- 

' The kinship here is, in part, a contamination from the kinship in the Relatives-Hag 
story. 

' So far as I can see, the legends of Feirefiz and Morien developed or were incorporated after 
the time when the ancestor of W branched off from the parent stock. 



THE RELIEF OF THE BESIEGED LADY QI 

lowed as clues: Saracen, Moor, Turk; Scotland; Scotch, French, 
Spanish kings as Traveling Companions (in W they are shifted to 
the enemy's camp) ; three battles, etc. 

The common source waa a form of the Red Knight- Witch- 
Uncle story that had been subjected to the ^'Saracen Influence." 
The only things of a ^' Saracen " nature that exerted any *' influence," 
I think, were a few proper names — not either incidents or events 
drawn from an experience with Eastern life. To show that these 
names were present, that they were merely substitutes for vaguer 
names, and how they came to be introduced, is the purpose of the 
next two paragraphs. 

In Gaelic tales (both Scotch and Irish) one of the common desig- 
nations for the realm of magic and monsters, the land where things 
happen, is "The Eastern World"; and a personage of mystery and 
power is King or Prince of the Eastern World. When this coun- 
try was localized, it became, depending on the geographical knowl- 
edge of the tale-teller, Scotland, Lochlann, Alba, Spain,^ etc. In 
reaching it, be it which country it might, the hero traveled through 
other lands, and these in turn acquired — as substitutes for their 
earlier vaguer and more mysterious names, like Lonesome Island, 
Golden Mines, D'yerree-in-Dowan, or what-not — such geographical 
names as France, Greece; and the foes the hero had to overcome 
became Lochlanners (the Norse) ,^ Sassenach (the Saxons), and such. 
The process of such a change of names was helped and hastened when 
the nations mingled in the borderlands of England and Scotland,^ 
say from a.d. 1066 on. To the Englishman or Frenchman, who had 
heard of the Saracens in the East, the expression ''Eastern World" 

* Even Prussia occurs in "The Son of the King of Prussia," a tale in which the hero's 
battle for the Three Young Men against the Hag's host appears in an obscured and brief way; 
vide Larminie, W.I.F.T., 153 flf. 

* Concerning the meaning of Lochlann, see an article by A. Bugge, "Contributions to the 
History of the Norsemen in Ireland, I," in Skrifter udgivne of videnskabsselskabet i Christiania 
(1900), No. 4. The tellers of the folk-tales, however, do not appear to have attached any very 
definite meaning to "Lochlann"; it is used quite as vaguely as Greece and Spain. 

The source of " Gollerothirame," the name of the Sowdane in SP, has never been pointed out. 
Is it possible that it is, say, an Englishman's misrendering of the phrase " Gille Righ Lochlann " ? 

* I do not mean to intimate that the use of "Saracen" in this fashion occurred only in this 
territory. A disposition to use it so is noticeable early and was widespread. Heathen Normans 
appear in mediaeval literature as "Saracens." For what is apparently a late substitution, 
cf. the "Souden Turk" of the ballad "Outlaw Murray" and the notes in Child's Eng. and 
Scot. Pop. Ballads, V, 185 fif., esp. var. C, 1. 22. 



92 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

would inevitably suggest the Saracens : when the Gaels learned of 
the Frenchman's and the Englishman's ''East," his own expression 
acquired a new connotation for him. If a Gael substituted his 
hereditary enemy, the Saxon, for his hero's more mysterious enemy, 
any confusion that would arise — through a Frenchman's or an 
Englishman's mishearing or misinterpretation — ^between Saxon 
{Sassun in Gaelic, Saisson in French) and Saracen^ would hasten 
the change. 

Subsidiary evidence pointing likewise to such an evolution in 
nomenclature is to be had outside of our four tales. In PC, Perce- 
val's mother announces her intention to retire into Scotland, a 
connection with Scotland being thus established with a Perceval 
tale that has some intimate resemblances to the earlier parts of 
SP and W. The story of a "Saxon " battle is several times referred to 
in the mazes of the Prose Tristan.^ The tent of the Scotch Eisen- 
hart, which Gahmuret brings from Belakane's land (PT, I, 795-98; 
II, 73ff.)> is to be compared with the tent that Palamedes ''the 
Saracen" (out of Saxon?) receives from the Scotch Queen {Prose 
Tristan, p. 102, §128).^ 

Because of the cleavage it introduces into the group of associated 

' None of my readers will make the mistake, which sometimes has been made, of supposing 
that because these tales use the word Saracen, therefore they must have originated after the 
tale-tellers learned the use of that word. Dr. Douglass Hyde expressed the opinion {Beside the 
Fire, p. xxxii) that Conall was invented after the fall of Constantinople, arguing from the names 
and allusions; but Mr. Alfred Nutt {ibid., p. lii) siuBSiciently refuted the assumption. 

Robert Hunt wrote: "The term Saracen is always now supposed to apply to the Moors. 
This is not exactly correct. Percy, for example, in his 'Essay on the Ancient Minstrels,' says, 
'The old metrical romance of "Horn Child," which, although from the mention of Saracens, 
etc., it must have been written, at least, after the First Crusade, in 1096, yet from its Anglo- 
Saxon language or idiom, can scarcely be dated later than within a century of the 
Conquest.' .... It would not be a difficult task to show that the word Saracen, as used 
in Cornwall, — 'Atal Saracen!' 'Oh, he's a Saracen,' etc., was applied to the foreigners who 
traded with this country for tin — at a very early period." — Popular Romances of the West of 
England, sec. ser., Lond. (1865), p. 292. 

" E.g., the knights of Orcanie (Orkney) take part in the war of the Saxons against Win- 
chester. Cf. Laseth's Index, "Orcanie"; cf., also, the "Castle des Saracens," which appears 
to be in Brif ain. And cf. Malory, Book X, chap, xxxii: .... " Saracens landed in the coimtry 
of Cornwall, soon after these Sessoins were gone." North-of-England connections exist in 
PF's "Ither of Kukumerlant" (if this equals Cumberland) and in Meriaduec's "Gernemant [cf. 
C's Gomemant] of Norhombellande." 

' Rhys' s equation may not assist — ^it does not antagonize — my evidence: Palomedes=Pabo 
Prydein, Pabo of Pictland; and PelUnor = EUver. "The tradition is that Pabo was a king who 
became a saint, and this answers to Malory's story, that Palomydes was a Saracen who was 



THE RELIEF OF THE BESIEGED LADY Q3 

tales, this "Saracen Influence" leaves us with a pretty problem. 
Among the Scotch and Irish tales there are some that do not show 
the Saracen influence; e.g., the place of combat is in Red Sh and 
Ransom an island girt witk fire, in Manus and Big Men the 
Land of Big Men, in Lawn Dyarrig the Eastern World; and the 
enemies are supernatural but not Saracen. Some tales are in a 
middle position; as Champion, in which the battle occurs in a 
land beyond Greece, but the enemies are not Saracens. Other 
tales manifest the influence unmistakably; in Saudan Og the land 
is Spain, and the enemy the Young Sultan; in Conall the locality 
is vague (lubhar, Turkey in a variant) but the enemies are Saracens 
(really, Turks) . The problem lies in the fact that the same cleavage 
appears in the Perceval tales. C and G never suffered, or else 
wholly cast off, any Saracen influence; SP, W, and Pd{b) show its 
effects. The problem is : Was the Red Knight- Witch-Uncle story 
subjected to the Saracen influence before it was incorporated into 
other materials to form the Perceval tale, and then did C and G 
(their source or sources) eject all traces of that influence? Or, 
on the other hand, did the Perceval tale as such linger long enough 
in the land of its birth to exist in at least two variants, one showing 
the Saracen influence, one not? The solution remains yet to be 
discovered. 

converted to Christianity" — one day after fighting Galleron of Galway and Tristan (cf. 
Malory, XII, xii-xiv; and Rhys, Arth. Leg., p. 298). It is interesting that the Palomydes- 
uncle-of-Perceval version and the Gahmuret-father-of-Perceval version have the tent for a 
common possession; cf . the tent in Lanzelet, 4735 flf. 



CHAPTER V 
THE RESCUE OF THE LADY FALSELY ACCUSED 

[Eighteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-first Incidents (see pp. 78-79, supra)] 
Twenty-third Incident: The Tent Lady Again 

I. SP, 1817-84. 
II. Pd, 260. 

III. C, 4865-5072. 

IV. W, V, 960-1097. 

Twenty-fourth Incident: The Overthrow of the Tent Lord 
I. SP, 1885-1948. 
11. W, V, 1098-1435- 

III. C, 5073-5375 (204 of these lines occur in MS Mons only). 

IV. Pd, 260-61. 

Twenty-fifth Incident: The Hero Slays a Giant 

I. SP, 1949-2 104. 
C, W, Pd, wanting. 

Twenty-sixth Incident: Perceval Hears News of His Mother 

A. Mother and Son Reunited 

I. SP, 2105-2272. 

B. Mother's Death 

11. C, 4748-4801, 7761-93; Pd, 254-55. 
III. W, IX, 1280-1320. 

Twenty-seventh Incident: Reunion of Husband and Wife 

I. SP, 2273-2280. 
II. G, 189 ff. 
III. W, XVI, 361-434. 

Compare the conclusions of Ty, Card, Red Sh. 

Twenty-eighth Incident: The Death of the Hero 
I. SP, 2281-88. 



The Falsely Accused Lady Also Appears in 

Yv. — Yvain, Foerster's ed. (1906). 

LF. — The Lady of the Fountain, Nutt's reprint of Lady Guest's Mabinogion, 
pp. 167-96; Loth, II, 1-43. 

94 



THE RESCUE OF THE LADY FALSELY ACCUSED 95 

In this chapter nine incidents will be discussed. They are 
subdivided into two groups : the first group includes three incidents 
postponed from the preceding chapter and four that are to be 
summarized below; the second group embraces only the two inci- 
dents that bring SP to an end. The seven incidents of the first 
group constitute the last of the *' stories" that seem to me to have 
entered into the composition of the Perceval tale as it appears in 
SP. Evidence for the existence of this story outside of SP appears 
in two versions of the Iwain tale. W and the tale of Erec furnish 
cumulative evidence. 

First the divergences between SP and C will be pointed out; 
then the Tent Lady-Giant story will be taken up. 

A summary of the English poem will make the remainder of 
the tale clear: 

XXIII. Leaving Lufamour's castle, Perceval rode forward till he came 
where the Tent Lady was bound to a tree. He freed her, and had from 
her the account of how she was being punished by her husband for her sup- 
posed infidehty at the time of Perceval's visit to her tent. XXIV. The Tent 
Lord rode up, and was overthrown by the hero and compelled to restore the 
Lady to favor. XXV. When Perceval offered to return the Lady's ring if 
his own were restored to him, he learned that the ring had been given to a 
fell Giant; he set off to the Giant's hold to seek it, and there encountered and 
slew the Giant, who had been persecuting his (Perceval's) mother, XXVI. 
Told by the Giant's porter that his mother was in the neighboring forest, 
he went to seek her, found her demented, returned to the Giant's hold with her, 
and by the aid of the benevolent porter cured her by a (magic) drink. XXVII. 
With his mother he returned to his queen-wife and his realm. XXVIII. 
Afterward he went to the Holy Land, and there he was slain. Finis. 

It will be interesting to have next an outline by incidents of 5P, 
C, W, and Pd, and useful, because it will free us from the necessity 
of summarizing the latter part of C. 

SP.—^ Father's Marriage 1| His Death 1[ Mother's Flight H Boyish 
Exploits ^ Rehgious Instruction ^ Forest Knights ^ Advice ^ First Tent 
Lady ^ Court H Red Knight's Insult H His Death ^ Witch H Uncle 
^ Messenger ^ First Battle ^ Entering the Castle % Second Battle 
^ Gawain Encounter ^ Arthur Entertained ^ Third Battle % Marriage 
% Departure ^ Second Tent Lady ^ Tent Lord ^ Giant ^ Reunion with 
Mother ^ Return to Luf amour ^ Death. 

C.—^ Forest Knights H Advice H Mother's Death If First Tent Lady 



96 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

II First Red Knight 1[ Court H Second Red Knight (Death) ^Gome- 
mans ^ Entering Besieged Castle ^ First Battle ^ Second ^ Third Battle 
If Departure ^ Grail Castle ^"Giermaine Cosine" ( = Sigune) ^Second 
Tent Lady ^ Tent Lord ^ Arthur's Search ^ Snow Scene ^ Second 

Court ^ Loathly Damsel (Most of the rest of C concerns Gawain's 

deeds.) 

W. — ^ Belakane ^ Father's Marriage (to Herzeloyde) ^ His Death 
^ Mother's Flight ][ Boyish Exploits ^ Religious Instruction ^ Forest 
Knights ^ Advice ^ Mother's Death ^ First Tent Lady ^ First Sigune 
^ First Red Knight ^ Court ^ Second Red Knight (Death) ^ Gurne- 
manz ^ Entering Besieged Castle •[[First ^Second ^ Third Battle ^Mar- 
riage ^ Departure ^ First Grail Castle ^ Second Sigune % Second Tent 
Lady ^ Tent Lord ^ Arthur's Search ^ Snow Scene *[[ Second Court 
^ Cundrie , . . . ^ Gawain Encounter . . . . ^ Reunion with Condwiramur. 

Pd.—^ Father's Death 1| Mother's FHght % Boyish Exploits ^ Forest 
Knights ^ Advice ^ First Tent Lady H Red Knight's Insult ^ Court 
^ Red Knight's Death ^ Unknown Knight Sent to Arthur j[ Sixteen Knights 
ditto ^ Lame Uncle ^ Castle of Lance and Salver ^ Foster Sister ^ Arthur's 
Search (part) ^ Entering Besieged Castle ^ First ^ Second T| Third 
Battle ^ Departure ^ Second Tent Lady ^ Tent Lord ^ First Nine 
Sorceresses ^ Snow Scene (Arthur's Search, completed) ^ Second Court 
(^ iVdventures, pp. 266-70) ^ P(/(&) ^ Loathly Damsel ^ 

A glance at the foregoing outlines shows that, for the portion of 
the tale that succeeds Perceval's departure from the castle of the 
Lady whom he has rescued from siege, SP and C agree upon only 
two incidents; though one of C's incidents (Arthur's search for the 
hero) finds its equivalent in an earlier part of SP. W agrees with 
SP in two more incidents than does C, the Gawain encounter and 
the reunion with the Besieged Lady, who is the hero's wife in SP 
and W but not in C and Pd. The discussion now concerns itself 
with the two incidents upon which SP and C agree; then some 
comments are to be offered on portions of C that have no equivalents 
in5P. 

It is a fact — but one whose significance is not wholly clear — 
that the three incidents involving the Tent Lady and her Lord 
(the visit to the tent, the meeting with this Lady in distress, and 
the downfall of the Lord) are those sections of the whole tale upon 
which the four versions approach nearest to a complete agreement. 
After this general statement, it will be more helpful for us to examine 
differences between SP and C than agreements. In the matter of 



THE RESCUE OF THE LADY FALSELY ACCUSED 97 

the lapse of time SP is definite and consistent; the hero stays with 
the Besieged Lady a year lacking a few days, from one Christmas 
to the next (1769-70, 1785, 1 801-5). C is confused and self- 
contradictory; w^hen Yones reports to King Arthur the death of the 
Red Knight, the fool predicts that Kex will be wounded by Perceval 
within forty days (2444 ff.), and the wounding occurs shortly after 
the second meeting with the Tent Lady, but meantime the Lady 
has had her clothing worn out and her skin tanned by cold and burnt 
by heat {4900 ff .) ; Perceval left his forest home when the meadows 
were covered with spring flowers, but slightly over forty days later 
he tumbled Kex into a snow-bank. Pd is silent (but cf. p. 253, 11. i 
and 12-13). Wolfram perceived Crestien's inconsistency and 
avoided it;' his version omits the forty days of the prophecy of the 
fool (=Sir Antanor), says that the Tent Lady (Jeschute) ''suffered 
more than a whole year" (III, 706-7), and practically asserts that 
the hero dwelt with the Besieged Lady for months (IV, 1 285-1306). 
Again we find that W in departing from C approaches SP; and 
it does so in this instance, I think, because Wolfram had before 
him, in addition to C, a version which laid stress upon the hero's 
marriage and his consequent tarrying with the Besieged Lady for a 
length of time, probably a year as in SP. Further, the kinship 
between SP and W as against C is observable here in several details. 
Five such points are: (i) in SP the Tent Lady recounts to Perceval 
the visit to the tent, but, though he knows he was the visitor, he 
keeps silence now; in W she recognizes him and tells him he caused 
her trials: in C neither apparently recognizes the other, and the 
Lord is the one who, later in the tale, tells of the visitor at the tent. 
(2) In SP the hero takes his helmet off and lies down with his head 
on the Lady's knee; in W he rides along with his helmet off because 
of the heat (though very soon afterward he is to find the ground 
snow-covered): in C there is no hint of anything similar. (3) In 
SP and W Perceval gives his version of the visit to the tent after 
the Lord has been vanquished : in C, after the Lord's account but 
before the battle, Perceval acknowledges that he was the visitor. 
(4) In SP and W the Tent Lord's past history is given, and, though 
the two versions offer different accounts, they show significant 

' Cf. Wolfram's perplexity, VI, 42-52. 



qS sir PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

resemblances (cf. chapter I, p. 19, supra^) : in C there is no hint out 
of which these accounts could have grown. (5) In SP and W there 
is an elaborate accounting for the ring the hero had taken; in SP 
the ring is not returned, in W the ring is returned but the brooch is 
not; in C there is no hint concerning the return of the ring, it is 
of no more consequence than the pasties Perceval had eaten. 

In C the Snow Scene succeeds the overthrow of the Tent Lord 

(whom Perceval sends with messages to court): 

The King seeking the hero and the hero riding at random arrived at almost 
the same place. Perceval was riding through the snow that had fallen in the 
night when he observed three drops of blood fallen from a bird wounded by a 
falcon. Blood and snow reminded him of the white and red in the face of his 
love. He rested his face against his lance, and sank into a deep revery. Pages 
of the court brought news to camp of the stranger transfixed in the snow, and 
Saigremors went out to fetch him before the King. Perceval roused just 
enough to unhorse Saigremors. The boastful Kex met a like treatment, and 
was sore wounded by his fall. Gawain arrived, courteously secured Perce- 
val's attention, and made himself known; Perceval rejoiced, learned of Kex's 
wound, and announced his name. The two knights went in gladness to Arthur's 
camp. (In C this is the first meeting between Perceval and Gawain.) The 
King and his court returned in joy to Carlion; and next day the Loathly 
Damsel arrived (C. 5533-6022). 

The Snow Scene is analyzable into three elements : the revery, 
the wounding of Kex as the fulfilment of a prophecy, and the juxta- 
position of the downfall of the braggart Kay and the success of the 
courteous Gawain. The revery over drops of blood in snow is a 
widespread donnee, and is much older than Crestien.^ Indeed, in C 
it appears in its truncated form; in what is probably the better 
(older) type of the incident, the remembered lady has black hair, 
and there is some object present to recall that to the lover's mind. 
Such is the case in Pd, and we have been assured that the Besieged 
Lady has black hair and brows (Pd, 257); but C says the Lady's 
hair was like fine gold. The revery was undoubtedly inserted 

' Orilus' attempt to grasp Parzival in the battle, and the humiliating treatment he receives, 
of being tucked under Parzival's arm like a sheaf of grain and then laid across a log (V, 1242 flf.), 
recall the Red Knight's threat in SP (681-84) to cast Perceval into the pool like an old sack. 
No such language or deed could be permitted to Ither (Red Knight), who had become, in W, 
the most refined of knights. 

' Cf. Zimmer, Keliische Studien, II, 201-8; Nutt, Stud., 137. 



THE RESCUE OF THE LADY FALSELY ACCUSED 99 

bodily into the tale, but how early is uncertain. Its absence from 
SF warrants us in assuming, until adverse evidence is available, 
that the insertion occurred after the splitting off of SP^s ancestor 
from the parent stock. The wounding of Kay has no essential 
connection with the re very. Three incidents or points make up the 
Kex story as C^ has it : the wounding of those who honor Perceval 
at court, the prophecy of harm to Kex within forty days, and Per- 
ceval's overthrow of the seneschal. So far as I can see at present, 
an early form of the tale probably possessed the maiden at court 
who was to laugh only when the best knight in the world should 
come. Her presence in C and in Red Sh (though in a different 
place) is the foundation for my belief. To the lady with the pro- 
phetic laugh C (or its ancestor) annexed the fool with his forty-day 
prophecy and its fulfilment. And it was this prophecy and its 
fulfilment plus Crestien's desire to have his tale begin in the spring^ 
that introduced two different clocks into C — to the confusion of 
Wolfram.^ SP apparently descends from a variant in which the 
prophecy of the coming of the hero is known at court, but in the 
form of ^'books'' {SP, 561-68), and not in connection with a 
maiden's laugh. The juxtaposition of Kay's boorishness and 
Gawain's courtesy is one of the commonest incidents in romance.'* 
No such scene occurs in this portion of SP, though the encounter 
with Gawain offered an excellent opportunity for it. And judging 
from the sentiment concerning Kay expressed in SP, 297 ff . (Per- 
ceval meets the Forest Knights), I believe that if the author of 
SP had ever heard of the Snow Scene of C he could never have 
forgotten it or refrained from using it in his poem.'' ' 

It has been argued that the battle between Perceval and Gawain, 

* W and Pd agree with C in part. 

* Cf . the beginning of Erec and of Yvain. 

' In Pd there is no mention of forty days; actually, however, about six weeks intervene 
(three weeks and three days being spent with the Besieged Lady). Aside from the mention of 
snow there is no indication of the season. 

* a. Erec; Yvain; Golagros and Gawain; Avowing of Arthur; Marriage of Gawain; GoW' 
ther and Carle of Carlyle; etc., etc. An interesting parallel appears in Mananaun (74-75), 
where Kaytuch, near the camp of Finn, overthrows the surly Conan (who comes as ambassador 
to him), but goes pleasantly enough with the courteous Keeltje. 

' Perceval endangers the life of Kay once only in SP; once only in C, in the Snow Scene; 
twice in W, in the Snow Scene and when he was first at court, Book III, 1123-26 



lOO SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

in SP, and later the hero's revery' in the midst of the battle with 
Gollerothirame were drawn frorn C's Snow Scene. As for the 
first, there is no such battle in C; its real source will be pointed 
out a few pages below. The r every in SP is poorly motivated (the 
author attempts to be humorous), and its cause and surroundings 
are different from those in C. Both poems have a revery connected 
with a combat; there may have been a revery in their (distant) 
common source; it is hardly possible that one account is drawn from 
the other. 

The last of the stories we have to discuss includes, in whole or in 
part, seven of the incidents in SP — the two meetings with the Tent 
Lady, the battle with Gawain, the entertainment of King Arthur, 
the overthrow of the Tent Lord, the fight with the Giant, and the 
rescue of Perceval's mother. The parallels that bear witness to 
the existence of such a story are drawn from two versions of the 
Iwain tale, the anonymous Welsh,^ and Crestien's French.^ In 
the sequence of incidents SP is more like the Welsh; in content 
it presents a number of things that appear in the French but not 
in the Welsh. 

Yvain and the Welsh Lady of the Fountain are summarized, but 
the repetition of summaries of SP is obviated by the table. 

Yvain. — A. [Once at court Calogrenant told how, seven years before, he 
had passed through the adventures of the Hospitable Host and the Giant 
Herdsman, and had been overthrown by the Knight of the Rain-making Foun- 
tain. .King Arthur determined to attempt the same adventures; but Yvain 
desired them for himself, and so he stole away alone. He followed the desig- 
nated route, mortally wounded the Fountain Knight, and pursued him into 
the castle of the Fountain Lady (Laudine).] ^ Yvain came to a deserted 
place within the walls and there met a damsel (Lunete), the chief companion 
of Laudine. Lunete presented Yvain a Gygean ring, by which means his life 
was preserved, took him to a room, and gave him food and drink. 

' See Newell, Leg, of the Holy Grail, 82. 

' The question of whether or not the Welsh is dependent upon Crestien's poem has not yet, 
so far as I know, been determined. Its answer either way can only aflfect, not overthrow, my 
results. And my study may assist in determining the relationship. 

^ Mr. Rhys devotes the fourth chapter of his Arthurian Legend to an elaborate comparison 
between the tales of Peredur and Owein. He makes much use, however, of Pd{b); and if the 
conclusion I reached in chap, iii, supra, be well foimded, the use he has made of Pd{h) has 
rather misled him. The comparison I propose to institute is quite different from his. 



THE RESCUE OF THE LADY FALSELY ACCUSED lOI 

B. ^Lunete persuaded Laudine it was wisest to marry Yvain that he 
might guard her Fountain and her castle. ^ Before the wedding feast was 
over, Arthur and his knights arrived at the Fountain. Kay secured permission 
to test the adventure, and he was promptly overthrown by Yvain, who recog- 
nized his opponent but was himself unrecognized. When Gawain offered 
combat, Yvain made himself known and praised him. [The great battle between 
Yvain and Gawain, in which neither knows who the other is, comes near the 
end of the poem, where it occupies over i,8oo lines.] 

C. T[ Yvain conducted Arthur and his attendants to the castle of the 
Lady whom he had just married, and there entertained them with a great 
feast. 

D. ^ At Gawain's importunity Laudine consented that Yvain return 
with the King's retinue on condition that he would remain away not more than 
a year. She gave her husband a ring that would prevent wound or imprison- 
ment so long as he wore it and remembered her. [The Gygean ring is of no 
further consequence.] Yvain remained away for a year and a half. ^ Then, 
deprived of his ring by a messenger, he became insane, was restored by a magic 
balm, and secured his attendant lion. ^ Wandering one day in sadness, he 
came to the place of the Fountain and paused to bemoan his fate. From 
"the chapel" an imprisoned woman told him that she was more unhappy than 
he. He learned that she was Lunete and had been imprisoned by the Foun- 
tain Lady's seneschal on a charge of treason ( = her friendship for the recreant 
Yvain) , and was to be burnt unless a knight would champion her cause. She 
explained, further, that she knew of only two knights who would be willing to 
defend her, Gawain and Yvain, and her messenger had failed to reach either of 
them. Yvain promised to be her champion on the morrow. 

E. Below. 

F(a). ^ Now, following her directions, he sought a castle in which to spend 
the night. Entering the castle, he was made sorrowfully welcome, and was 
told that the castle was being besieged by a Giant, Harpin de la Montaigne,' 
who desired the castle lord's daughter. 

G. ^ The lord's wife was Gawain's sister, and when the daughter pleaded 
with Yvain in the name of Gawain, her uncle, he consented to fight the Giant. 
[His previous engagement was the cause of his hesitancy.] 

F(6). ^ He slew the Giant, and departed. 

E. ^ He reached the Fountain to find Lunete's enemies preparing to 
burn her. He was forced to do battle against the seneschal and his two 
brothers all at once, but, aided by his lion, he vanquished the three, and burned 
them in the fire prepared for Lunete. 

B(6). ^ Yvain had many other adventures. Near the end of the poem 
the battle between Yvain and Gawain is elaborately prepared for. ^ The 
two fought, neither knowing who his opponent was, in the presence of Arthur 

' Cf. Ogier le Danois, 9815: "Manda Harpin ki forme ot de gaiant." 



I02 SIR PERCEVAL OP GALLES 

and his court until they recognized each other. Then each wished to acknowl- 
edge the other the victor. ^ Later Yvain was reunited with his wife. 

LF. ^ The Welsh Lady of the Fountain. — ^A. [Kynon (instead of Calo- 
grenant) told of his adventures. Owain (=Iwain) decided he would test them. 
He met the Hospitable Host, passed the Giant Herdsman, mortally wounded 
the Black Knight, the defender of the Fountain, and followed him inside the 
castle walls.] ^ His life was saved here by Luned, who gave him a Gygean 
ring, and then led him to a chamber where she tended him and gave him the 
richest of food and drink. 

B. ^ Luned next persuaded the Countess of the Fountain that it was 
wisest for her to marry Owain. ^ Three years later Arthur became uneasy 
at the absence of Owain, and, persuaded by Gwalchmai ( = Gawain), went with 
his household to seek him. When the Fountain was reached, Kay begged 
permission to test the adventure, and was promptly overthrown by the defender 
(now Owain). Others of the household were overthrown by Owain, who knew 
them but was not recognized by them. At length Gwalchmai, so clad as to 
be unrecognized by Owain, offered battle, and the contest was bitter and long, 
lasting through three days until a blow revealed Gwalchmai's face; then the 
two friends embraced. 

C. 1[ Owain conducted the entire party to the castle of his wife, the 
Countess, and feasted them royally. 

D. ^ After three months of feasting, Owain secured his wife's permission 
to return with the King to court and to deeds of chivalry, to be absent three 
months. [No statement occurs here concerning the second ring.] \ Forget- 
ful, he stayed away three years; whereupon a messenger from the Countess 
deprived him of his (hitherto unmentioned) ring. He went mad from grief, 
wandered in desert places, after a time was cured by a magic balm, and secured 
a lion for his page. ^ One evening he came to a meadow, and while eating 
supper he heard someone sigh thrice in distress. The sighs came from Luned, 
imprisoned in a vault and being punished for her loyalty to Owain. Two 
pages of the Countess' chamber had imprisoned her and were going to put her 
to death on the morrow unless Owain should return to fight them both in her 
behalf. Owain (unrecognized by her) promised to aid her next day. 

F. If At her directions he sought a castle in which to spend the night. 
He entered the castle and was welcomed, though sadly, being told that a Giant 
was going to reinforce his demand for the castle lord's daughter by attacking 
the castle next morning. Owain next day slew the Giant (by the help of the 
lion), saved the castle lord's daughter, and restored to him his two sons. 

E. ^ Owain then returned to the meadow where Luned was prisoner, 
and fought with the two young men till, with the aid of his lion, he slew them; 
thus he restored Luned to freedom, happiness, and honor. *[[ Owain returned 
with Luned to the castle of the Countess; thence he went to Arthur's court, 
taking his wife with him 



THE RESCUE OF THE LADY FALSELY ACCUSED 103 

The sequence of incidents is : 

SP—A B C D E F G 
LF—A B CD F E 

Yv—A B(a) C D ^ F(a) G F{b) E B(&) 

The Welsh does not make the lady saved from the Giant a 
kinswoman of Gawain (incident G), and- places the punishment of 
the Damsel's persecutors (E) after the battle with the Giant (F) . 
SP places the explanation that the lady persecuted by the Giant 
was a relative of Gawain (G) after the fight with the Giant (F). 
Yv splits the battle with Gawain (B[a] and B[b]), puts the explana- 
tion concerning Gawain's kinswoman (G) in the midst of the 
account of the fight with the Giant (F[a] and F[b]), and places the 
punishment of the persecutors (E) after the fight with the Giant (F). 

The following table indicates that the agreements extend to a 
considerable degree of minuteness: 

A. The Helpful Damsel 

The hero in the Damsel's apartment SP LF Yv C W 

Is given food and drink SP LF Yv C W 

And a magic ring SP LF Yv 

His life is in danger if he should be dis- 
covered LF Yv C W 

B. The Battle with Gawain 

The hero has just married SP Yv 

Arthur and knights approach^ the wife's 

castle SP LF Yv 

The hero issues against them SP LF Yv 

And overthrows Kay LF Yv 

He and Gawain fight a battle SP LF Yv^ W^ 

Neither recognizing the other SP LF Yv W 

Accident brings recognition SP LF Yv W 

And joyful embrace SP LF Yv W 

C. The King Entertained 

The hero leads the royal party to the castle of 

his wife SP LF Yv 

And all are sumptuously feasted SP LF Yv 

' In Yv Arthur is seeking the Wonderful Fountain; in SP and LF he is seeking the hero. 
* The combat is placed near the end of the poem. 



c 


w 


c 


w 


c 


w 


c 


w 



104 SIR PERCEVAL OE GALLES 

D. The Damsel Persecuted 

A year, or more, after his marriage SP LF Yv W 

The hero is back near the place where he first 

met the Damsel SP LF Yv 

He hears a cry of distress SP LF Yv 

Finds the Damsel a prisoner SP LF Yv 

Persecuted for her connection with him SP LF Yv C W 

He befriends her SP LF Yv 

Hears her story SP LF Yv 

And promises his aid LF Yv 

E. The Persecutor Punished 

1. The Tent Lord approaches SP 

He and Perceval encounter. SP 

He is overthrown SP 

And forced to restore the Damsel to his favor SP 

2. Iwain approaches the place of combat LF Yv 

A fire is ready to burn the Damsel LF Yv 

Iwain is ready for battle LF Yv 

He overthrows the persecutors LF Yv 

And burns them in the fire intended for the 

Damsel LF Yv 

F. The Fight with the Giant 

The hero is sent by the persecutor SP 

by the Damsel LF Yv 

To a castle owned by a Giant SP 

attacked by a Giant LF Yv 

Who seeks to win a lady SP LF Yv 

The Giant's garments and weapons are con- 
ventional SP Yv 

The Giant is slain SP LF Yv 

G. The Rescue of Gawain's Kinswoman 

The lord of the castle LF Yv 

Or the porter SP 

explains what the Giant seeks SP LF Yv 

The lady is Gawain's niece Yv 

Gawain's sister (or aunt) SP 



Perceval's mother is cured of insanity SP 

Iwain is cured of insanity LF Yv 

By a magic balm or potion SP LF Yv 



THE RESCUE OE THE LADY FALSELY ACCUSED 105 

The Tent Lord's suspicion is one of the chief threads binding 
together the hero's adventure at the Tent and the events subsequent 
to the relief of the Besieged Lady. In recounting the happenings at 
the Tent, SP makes no mention of the husband; C, W, and Pd 
detail his return, rage, and determination to punish his wife. There 
was, of course, no ground for his jealous suspicion; if, however, we 
might for a moment grant the possibility that he had heard the 
events of a folk-tale now fairly common, we could pardon in him at 
least a feeling of uneasiness. I shall, at a venture, subjoin sum- 
maries of these tales; then I shall point out some striking similari- 
ties, and also some difficulties in the way of considering them as 
connected with the source of the story of the Falsely Accused Lady 
of the Perceval tale. 

Coldfeet. — After varied adventures, Coldfeet came to an old man who told 
him that there was only one day in the year in which to accomplish his task, 
for the Queen and her guardians slept for just a single day; he must reach the 
Queen before noon, and leave the island before nightfall; and "The sword of 
light will be hanging at the head of her bed, the loaf [of bread] and the bottle 
of water on the table near by." Coldfeet came to Lonesome Island. Before 
noon he was in the chamber of the Queen, and she lay asleep. "He found every 
thing there as the old man had told him. Seizing the sword of light quickly 
and taking the bottle and the loaf, he went toward the door; but there he halted, 
turned back, stopped a while with the queen. It was very near he was then 
to forgetting himself; but he sprang up, took one of the queen's garters, and 
away with him." 

A Hag had sent Coldfeet to the Island to procure these wondrous articles. 
Returning as he came, he reached the Hag's castle, and she demanded sword, 

bottle, and loaf ''With that Coldfeet drew the sword of light, and sent 

her head spinning through the sky in the way that 'tis not known in what part 
of the world it fell or did it fall in any place. He burned her body then, scattered 
the ashes, and went his way further." 

"In three quarters of a year the Queen of Lonesome Island had a son." 
When he was two years old, she set off to find his father. Following the traces 
of the magic loaf, bottle, and sword she came to Coldfeet, and heard his story. 
" 'Have you the golden garter ? ' [she asked]. 'Here it is,' said the young man. 
'What is your name ?' asked the queen. 'Coldfeet,' said the stranger. 'You 
are the man,' said the queen. 'Long ago it was prophesied that a hero named 
Coldfeet would come to Lonesome Island without my request or assistance, 
and that our son would cover the world with his power. Come with me now 
to Lonesome Island.'" 



Io6 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

Uyerree. — Cart and his two brothers set off to the well of D'yerree-in- 
Dowan [=end of the world] to fetch a bottle of water from the well, which was 
a "well of cure." An old man assisted Cart to reach the island of the Well, 
and informed him that the Queen of the island and her attendants and her 
guards likewise were asleep, and would not waken for a year and a day. He 
gave Cart two bottles to be filled from the well. Cart reached the well, and 
filled his bottles. Then he saw a castle all lighted. He drew near, and looked 
in through a window; he saw a table, and on it a loaf of bread, a knife, a bottle 
and a glass. He entered^ and found that the loaf and the contents of the 
bottle never grew less; so he took them with him. He entered a chamber, and 
saw the Queen with her eleven waiting-maids asleep, and a sword of light hung 
over the Queen's head. He kissed the Queen and her eleven maids, and none 

awoke. With sword, bottles, and loaf, he returned to the old man Of 

course, Cart returned to his brothers; they made him drunk, stole his bottles 
of water, and pretended to the King that they were the heroes and Cart a 

fool A year later the Queen awoke, and her eleven maids likewise, 

and each of the twelve found a young son in bed beside her. The Queen 
set off to find out who was the father of her son. She followed his track, 
recovering the sword of light, the never-failing bottle, and the loaf of bread 
where he had successively left them, arrived at the King's castle, tested the 
brothers Art and Nart, proving them false claimants, and restored Cart to 
high honor. Then taking him as her husband, she returned to the Well of 
D 'yerree-in-D o wan . 

Lonesome Island. — The King of Erin was led into following a pig through 
the sea (swimming) to an island. Landing, he went to a fine castle, which had 
a low door with a broad threshold all covered with sharp-edged razors, and a 
low lintel of long-pointed needles. With a jump, he entered. "When inside 
he saw a great fire on a broad hearth, and said to himself, *I sit down here, 
dry my clothes, and warm my body at this fire.' A table came before him with 
every sort of food and drink, without his seeing anyone bring it. He ate and 
drank. When he grew tired, he looked behind him, and if he did he saw a 
fine room, and in it a bed covered with gold. He went to bed and slept. In 
the night he waked, and felt the presence of a woman in the room. He reached 
out his hand towards her and spoke, but got no answer; she was silent." In 
the morning he left the castle, only to find himself in a beautiful garden whence 
he could not escape. The same things happened the second night and morning. 
He jumped into the castle the third night. The same events occurred. He 
waked in the middle of the night. " * Well,' said he, 'it is a wonderful thing for 
me to pass three nights in a room with a woman, and not see her nor know who 
she is!' 'You won't have to say that again, King of Erin,' answered a voice. 
And that moment the room was filled with a bright fight, and the King looked 
upon the finest woman he had ever seen. 'Well, King of Erin, you are on 
Lonesome Island. I am the black pig that enticed you over the land and 
through the sea to this place, and I am queen of Lonesome Island. My two 



THE RESCUE OF THE LADY FALSELY ACCUSED 107 

sisters and I are under a Druidic spell, and we cannot escape from this spell 
till your son and mine shall free us.'" .... Years later the King's son was 
put under spells. He had come to Erin, and was hated by the King's wife 
(his step-mother?), who put him under spells to fetch her "three bottles of 
water from Tubber Tintye, the flaming well." He started off, accompanied 
by his two half-brothers, the queen's sons. He left the brothers, one after the 
other, behind him, and went on; he crossed successfully a river of fire, and passed 
a belt of poisonous trees, and came to a' castle. [About this time he first 
learned who his father was, though he had often wondered about the matter.] 
As his horse shot past an open window of the castle, the prince sprang in. 
The whole place was filled with giants, long slippery eels, bears, and beasts 
of every kind, sleeping their period of seven years' sleep. The prince 
passed to a stairway, entered a chamber, and found there a beautiful 
woman asleep; he went on by, and passed through eleven more chambers, 
and each sleeping woman was more beautiful than the last. He made no 
stop till he reached the thirteenth chamber. When he opened the door to 
this chamber, the flash of gold took his sight away; he paused till he could see 
again. Here was a golden couch on golden wheels, and the couch went round 
and round continually. On the couch lay the Queen of Tubber Tintye, more 
beautiful than any of her maidens. At the foot of the couch was Tubber Tintye 
itself — the well of fire; and it turned with the couch. With a spring, the 
prince landed in the bed, and he stayed there six days and six nights. On the 
seventh day he came down, and filled his three bottles with water from the 
flaming well . In the golden chamber was a table of gold, and on the table a 
leg of mutton with a loaf of bread; and if all the men of Erin were to eat for a 
twelvemonth from the table, the mutton and bread would be the same as at 
first. The prince ate, and then took the bottles of water with him [but not the 
mutton and bread]; he wrote a note explaining his visit, and put it under the 
Queen's pillow ; then he left 

Of course, the two cowardly half-brothers claimed to be the heroes. 

When the Queen of Tubber Tintye opened her eyes, she found a six-year-old 
boy in bed beside her, found the letter, and set off to discover her visitor. She 
came to Erin, by a test brought about the destruction of the two half-brothers, 
forced the King to send for his son, the hero, and by the device of a magic 
girdle forced the King's wife to acknowledge that her sons had been bastards, 
caused the King to burn his false wife and marry the Queen of Lonesome Island, 
and then she and the prince were married. 

Golden Mines. — After fighting for three days. Jack slew a dragon. Each 
day Jack had been wounded, and each night he had been cured by a friendly old 
man, who "took down a little bottle of ointment, and rubbed it over Jack, and 
no sooner did he rub it over him than Jack's wounds were all healed as well as 
ever again." .... Jack came to a castle, entered, and wandered till he came 
to the sixth room, where he found the Queen asleep. He kissed her, took a 
jeweled garter, that was lying by the queen's bedside, a loaf of bread that could 



Io8 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

never be eaten out, a bottle of wine that could never be drunk out, and a purse 
that could never be emptied. The purse, wine, and bread were left at certain 
stages upon his return journey. Later they served the Queen as clues upon her 
search. She traveled over Jack's route, and finally found him, through all 
of his disguises, because of the garter. 

Kg of Eng.—. . . . Jack, the youngest of the King's three sons, came to a 
castle guarded by giants, lions, and fiery serpents, but all were asleep for the 
space of one hour. Jack entered the castle. "Turning to the right, upstairs 
he runs, enters into a very grand bed-room, and sees a very beautiful Princess 
lying full stretch on a gold bedstead, fast asleep. He gazes on her beautiful 
form with admiration, and he takes her garter off, and buckles it on his own leg, 
and he buckles his on hers; he also takes her gold watch, and pocket-hand- 
kerchief, and exchanges his for hers; after that he ventures to give her a kiss, 
when she nearly opened her eyes. Seeing the time short, he runs down 
stairs." .... Of course, the Princess sought him, and a year later found him; 
and they were married. 

Brown Bear. — The King of Erin had three sons. The King lost the sight of 
his eyes and the strength of his feet. His three sons set off to bring three bottles 
of the water of the Green Isle. John, the foolish youngest, was ill-treated by his 
brothers. But only John, helped by a Brown Bear, three giants, and an eagle, 
reached the Isle. "'Now, John,' says she [the eagle], 'be quick, and fill thy 
three bottles; remember that the black dogs are away just now.'" He filled 
his bottles out of the well; and he saw a little house. He entered. In the 
first chamber he saw a full bottle of whiskey; he drank some, and the bottle 
was still full. He took the bottle. In another chamber he found a never- 
failing loaf, which he took; in another, a cheese. "Then he went to another 
chamber, and he saw laid there the very prettiest little jewel of a woman he 
ever saw. 'It were a great pity not to kiss thy lips, my love,' says John." 
Then on the eagle's back he left the Isle. He returned by way of the giants' 
houses, where he left whiskey-bottle, loaf, and cheese, on condition that they 
should be given to a woman if she called for them. Of course, his brothers 

were treacherous, and John was defrauded The Lady of the Green 

Isle "became pale and heavy; and at the end of three quarters, she had a 
fine lad son." She set off to seek his father, and by following the route of the 
bottle, loaf, and cheese, and by using magic, she discovered John, restored him 
to honor, and she and John were married. End. (Campbell, Tales, I, 168-80.) 

The folk-tales furnish a raison d'etre for several rather arbitrary, 
if not unreasonable, matters in the Tent adventure (cf . chapter II, 
supra). First, there is the Lady's ill-timed nap; in Pd she was 
awake throughout, in C and W asleep part of the time and awake 
the rest, but in SP asleep throughout. The continuous sleep was a 
necessity in the hero's visit in the folk-tales. In SP there were no 



THE RESCUE OF THE LADY FALSELY ACCUSED 109 

attendant maidens; in some (not all) of the folk- tales there were, 
and they were asleep too; in C they were out of sight gathering 
flowers. Second, that the bread, meat, and wine are important 
in the Tent adventure is apparent, but why they are, is not. 
In the folk-tales these articles were never-failing (the never-failing 
loaf, meat, and bottle were by no means confined to this group of 
tales). If in the source of the Perceval tale they started off as 
never-failing, but somewhere lost their magic power, their impor- 
tance could linger on. And the equable division in SP could, indeed, 
be a remnant of the never-failing quality : he ate his fill, and left 
just as much as there was before he took any degenerating into 
he ate his fill, and left just as much as he took away. Third, the 
token the hero carries away is a garter in the folk-tales, a ring 
in the Perceval tale. The garter was, in the circumstances, 
probably the more natural trophy; the ring is the garter's substi- 
tute, rather than equivalent, and its origin will be pointed out 
later. Perhaps PF's ^'fiirspan" is the real descendant of the garter. 
Fourth, the story of the Tent Lady is responsible for the introduction 
into the Perceval tale of the one-year period of time, though as it 
now stands this story has no especial reason for covering just a 
year. But if the Tent adventure had an ancestor like, say, Uyerree 
or Brown Bear, the specification of the time as one year is not hard 
to account for. Fifth, if, again, the Tent adventure had such an 
ancestor, the ^^hall" (= castle) of SP is nearer to the source form 
than the Tent of the other versions. 

There are several difiiculties in the way of considering the Tent 
adventure and the folk- tales akin. First, the similarities are con- 
fined to the Tent adventure (the first meeting with the Tent Lady), 
and, as the argument given in part above and in part below makes 
clear, the Tent adventure is closely bound to incidents that come 
later. Second, the Queen in the folk- tales married her visitor; 
but the Tent Lady could not marry Perceval; another damsel 
had already been set apart for him. Whence the Tent Lord could 
arise is a query. Third, the similarities of the folk-tales are mainly 
with the Perceval, not with the Iwain, tale; yet the two latter tales 
drew upon a common source for their story of the Suspected Lady. 

The resemblances are interesting, but the discussion need not 



no SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

go farther until we have more grounds for suspecting a kinship 
between the folk-tales and the Tent adventure. 

I have spoken of the Tent Lord's suspicion (the jealousy of 
Laudine's seneschal is its equivalent in the Iwain tale) as one of 
the main threads of connection in the Suspected Lady's story. 

The second link to connect the Tent adventure with subsequent 
events is the Tent Lady's ring. In SP, Yv, and LF there are two 
rings. Lunete's ring of darkness, so far as I can see, lies outside 
of our comparison. The mother's ring in SP is to be compared with 
a ring of recognition in Conall and LD. Yvain's second ring, the 
one of magic power, received from Laudine, is the equivalent of 
the one Perceval takes from the Tent Lady, who asserts that its 
wearer can be neither wounded nor slain {SP, 1857-64). Comment 
on the connection with the ''stone of victory" in Red Sh will be 
made in the Conclusion. 

The giant fight of SP I thought, for a time earlier in my study, 
had an analogue in a giant combat in Wauchier's Continuation ^ 
(23880 ff., same in Wisse and Colin's German rendering). But 
the similarities are not very specific. The trouble with any giant's 
single combat is that it is very much like every other one; all 
have been conventionalized. The giant is fond of the flesh of 
beautiful damsels; he appears for battle, clad usually in skins and 
armed with a fearsome club;^ the fight is furious; the hero maims 

' In the odd description of the club in SP I hoped for a clue, but httle has come of it. The 
following account contains, besides the embellished club, a caldron of cure that may be compared 
with the magic draft and the bath given to Perceval's mother. 

Thief. — King Conal overcame and boimd the Thief, who saved his life by telling a story 
of how he had been nearer death than he was at this time [a common device of plot-structure 
in these tales]: .... "The big giant waited and waited, grew angry, took his great iron club 

with nine liunps and nine hooks on it He ran toward me, raised the club, and brought it 

down with what strength there was in him. I stepped aside quickly; the club sank in the earth 
to the depth of a common man's knee. While the giant was drawing the club with both hands, 
I stabbed him three times in the stomach, and sprang away to some distance. He ran forward a 
second time, and came near hitting me; again the club sank in the ground, and I stabbed him 
four times, for he was weaker from blood loss, and was a longer time freeing the club. The 
third time the club grazed me, and tore my whole side with a sharp iron hook. The giant 
fell to his knees, but could neither rise nor make a cast of the club at me; soon he was on his 
elbow, gnashing his teeth and raging. I was growing weaker, and knew that I was lost unless 
someone assisted me. The young woman [giant's captive] had come down, and was present at 
the struggle. 'Run now,' said I to her, 'for the giant's sword, and take the head oflF him.' 
She ran quickly, brought the sword, and as brave as a man took the head off the giant. ' Death 
is not far from me now,' said I. *I will carry you quickly to the giant's caldron of cure, and 



THE RESCUE OF THE LADY FALSELY ACCUSED III 

the giant, topples him over, and dispatches him. Such accounts are 
common, and examples need not be enumerated. My reason for 
thinking the Perceval and the Iwain giant combats related is — 
aside from their type similarity and their occurrence in sequences 
of events otherwise similar — that in each case the hero relieves a 
distressed kinswoman of Gawain by slaying the monster. Mr. 
Nutt reached the decision that the giant battle was a part of the 
primitive form of the Perceval tale; and Mr. Brown concluded that 
the giant battle was, likewise, an event in the primitive Iwain tale. 
The topic is reverted to in the Conclusion. 

In the account of the mother, SP weaves in two matters that 
show resemblances to the Iwain tale. The first, her kinship to 
Gawain (SP, 1441, 1457), has just been referred to. The other 
is her dementia. To expand this: (a) In SP the mother sees a 
ring she had given her son, and thinking he must be dead, she 
becomes insane : Iwain has taken from him a ring his love had given 
him, and thinking she is now lost to him, goes insane, (b) Both 
wander in the woods and live like wild animals.' (c) The mother 
is cured by a drink that had been brewed by the giant, hence it is, 
of course, magical; then she is given a bath: Yvain is cured 
through the kindness of the Lady of Noroison, who has him anointed 
with a balm (magical, of course) given her by Morgue the Wise 
(2946-47). 

The similarities shown by SP, Yv, and LF are too numerous, 
too specific, too significant to be explained as due to chance or as 
romance commonplaces: in all three versions a damsel, not the 

give you life,' said the young woman. With that, she raised me on her back, and hurried out 
of the cellar. When she had me on the edge of the caldron, the death faint was on me, I was 
dying; but I was not long in the pot when I revived, and soon was as well as ever." [The hero 
gave some of the giant's treasure to the woman, and they parted.] — ^J. Cur tin, "Black Thief 
and Eling Conal's Horses," Hero Tales, 93-113, esp. pp. iio-ii. 

' Madness and magic balm both occur in the tale of Blaiman, though not together. 

Blaiman. — Blaiman's uncles were left with his wife on a ship and they sailed away with 
her [cf. the treachery in Red Sh, etc.]. When Blaiman returned, "he found neither wife, ship, 
nor uncles before him. He ran away Uke one mad, would not return to his father-in-law, but 
went wild in the woods, and began to Uve like the beasts of the wilderness. One time he came 
out on an edge of the forest, which was on a headland running into the sea, and saw a vessel 
near land; he was coming to his senses, and signalled." [No magic was used for his cure; but 
elsewhere in the tale an old woman three different times "put him into a caldron of venom, and 
then into a caldron of cure" to heal his wounds.] — J. Curtin, "Blaiman," Hero Tales, 373-406, 
esp. 402, 383, etc. 



112 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

heroine, furnishes food, drink, and a magic ring to the hero; and 
months later is found in duress and freed by him from punishment 
inflicted because of her real or supposed kindness to him. In all 
three versions the hero and Gawain do battle until they recognize 
each other, the two being warm friends. In all three the hero 
entertains King Arthur at the castle of the heroine; in two versions 
this entertainment is combined with the hero's wedding-feast 
and in two versions it occurs immediately after the combat between 
the hero and Gawain. In all three the hero does battle against 
a giant to free a lady, who, in two versions, is a near relative of 
Gawain. In all three the battle against the giant is closely associ- 
ated with the rescue of the damsel whose ring the hero has worn. 

The evidence of W, which has been of signal worth in other 
places, does not wholly fail us in connection with this story. W 
has preserved, though in a different place, the battle between 
Perceval and Gawain, when the two heroes fight without recog- 
nizing each other. The combat is noticeably like the Yvain- 
Gawain combat in Yv.^ It comes, moreover, near the climax — 
or is it the climax ? — of the story in W in which Gawain's sister and 
his aunt play important parts. Parzival does not have occasion 
to free the sister from persecution, but he does have a single com- 
bat with the man (a magician?) who wishes to marry her, the 
battle being fought in Gawain's own behalf. And King Arthur is 
in the neighborhood at the time, though he is to entertain rather 
than be entertained. Again, in all four versions Perceval meets 
the Tent Lady upon the first occasion near his boyhood home, 
and in SF the second meeting appears to occur in the same neigh- 
borhood (2137-40; but cf . 2201-5); and TF localizes the first meeting 
in the forest of Broceliande.'' Yv, of course, localizes the Fountain 

'Miss Weston {Mod. Lang. Quarterly, I [1898-99], 200) noticed this similarity: "I am 
strongly tempted to believe that such a fight was an integral part of the early Gawain legend. 
We have no fewer than four instances, the foemen being respectively Parzival, Yvain, Gareth, 
and Meraugis. That the Yvain story has been affected by the Perceval legend also seems 
probable from the circumstances of the maiden's reproaches to Yvain, which strongly resemble 
the incident of the Grail Messenger's attack upon Perceval." The Gareth battle occurs in 
Malory, Book VII, chap. iii. W, of course, preceding this combat is paralleled by the last 
portion of C. 

'The ways in which Wolfram (or his source) may have been led to the use of "Broce- 
liande" (Prizljan) are too many to permit any great weight to attach to this bit of evidence, but 
taken with other things, it appears worthy of statement. 



THE RESCUE OF THE LADY FALSELY ACCUSED II3 

and its chapel, Lunete's prison, in Broceliande. Wolfram (or his 
source, again) must have recognized a resemblance between the 
Tent Lady's woes and Enid's trials (in Erec), for he made Jeschute 
(his Tent Lady) the sister of Erec (III, 542-43). And Erec shows 
still another resemblance. The two incidents that constitute the 
history of the Tent Lady are easily comparable to the story of the 
Lady of the Silver Bed^ in the Joy-6f-the-Court episode in Erec 
(5878-61 61) and the Welsh Geraint (pp. 243-44) ; the two differences 
being, first, that the Tent Lady's history is divided, other incidents 
intervening between its two parts, while the other Lady's history 
is not so broken; and, second, the Tent Lady is sorely punished 
while the Lady of the Silver Bed is not, but it is interesting that 
much of the rest of Erec is devoted to an account of how a wife 
is persecuted by her husband.'' And we round back into connection 
with the Gawain battle and the battle for Gawain's relative in 
that in W these battles come just after Gawain's adventures (Books 
XI, XII) of the Wonderful Bed and the breaking of a bough in a 
magical garden, which are roughly comparable to the adventures 
of the Joy-of-the-Court episode. 

W, then, appears to be, or to have drawn upon, a variant of 
the story preserved in SP and Yv. 

SP and C tell the Tent Lady's story with considerable differ- 
ences. Which is the older version? If, for a First Supposition, 
we grant that C is the older, then we must account for SP by assum- 
ing a contamination from some form of the Iwain tale. But while 
any reader of the tales will, I believe, perceive easily the resem- 
blances here pointed out between SP and the Iwain tales, I do not 
believe he will arrive at the conclusion that SP is the result of the 

' Had the Lady been husbandless, I should have said cf. the golden bed of the tales sum- 
marized above, pp. 105 ff. 

' In Geraint, as in SP, C, and W, the husband suspects his wife's faithfulness to him; in 
Erec Crestien found a different motive for Erec's conduct. I see no reason why the Erec con- 
nection should have suggested "Broceliande" to Wolfram. The Joy-of-the-Court episode is 
usually considered as developed from a fee adventure (it is so much abbreviated it is a difficult 
subject to form any conclusions about). Many scholars (cf. Brown's "Iwain," Harv. Stud, 
and Notes, VIII) hold the Fountain Lady tale to be of similar descent. Brown was of the 
opinion that the story of Lunete's punishment and rescue was not a part of the early form of 
the tale (op. cit., p. 133). 

It looks not improbable to me that a single story was the common ancestor of the Joy-of-the- 
Court portion of Erec and (a highly rationalized form of it) of the Tent Lady and the Lunete 
portions of SP and Yv. 



114 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

crossing of an Iwain tale through a condensed version of C Such 
an assumption will leave W still' unaccounted for. If, for the 
Second Supposition, we presume SP to represent the earlier form, 
then the disappearance from C of magic and of the giant, and along 
with the giant the relative of Gawain, is to be accounted for in 
accordance with a principle enounced above (p. 67). The absence 
from C, also, of the hero's marriage, and the Gawain battle and 
the entertainment of the King, which were closely associated with 
the marriage, may receive some light from the considerations that 
follow. The Second Supposition carries with it as a corollary 
the assumption that LF rather than Yv preserves the original 
sequence of events in the Iwain tale. If so, then Crestien, or his 
predecessor, deliberately shifted the battle between the hero and 
Gawain to serve as an imposing end for his version of the Iwain 
tale. Since C is unfinished, it is certainly possible to hold that the 
author intended to transfer some or all of these three omitted (?) 
events to the end of his Perceval tale.' The possibility is strength- 
ened by the fact that just that transference occurs in W, where 
the Gawain combat, Gawain's kinswoman (both a sister and an 
aunt), and the reunion, if not the marriage, with the heroine (already 
a wife) provide the material for the last of the tale. And lastly, 
chapters I, III, and IV, supra, have all shown that SP represents 
the early form of the tale more closely than C does. 

The results set forth in this chapter have not so ample a founda- 
tion as those in chapter III, but it appears to me to be almost certain 
that the story of the Suspected Lady was incorporated into a frame- 
work to make the tale of Perceval. This chapter, too, accords 
completely with the preceding chapters in furnishing evidence that 
the tale was old enough and popular enough to occur in variants, 
for SP, C, and Wolfram-Kiot's version appear to have drawn upon 
variant forms of the Suspected Lady's story. The manner of 
incorporation of story into frame-tale will be discussed more in 
detail in the Conclusion. The points of contact were a magic 
ring (or stone) already present in the Red Knight- Witch-Uncle 
story, the King's search for the hero, and the hero's departure 
from and reunion with his wife. 

' Indeed, the last of C looks like the torso of an elaboration of this story on a large scale. 



THE RESCUE OF THE LADY FALSELY ACCUSED II5 

In SP the hero is reunited with his mother and then returns to 
his wife, and the tale ends. In all versions, Perceval's purpose in 
leaving the Besieged Lady (Lufamour-Blancheflur) is to seek his 
mother. In the Grail group he is not to find her, for she died 
when her son parted from her in the forest; he hears of her death, 
and is shortly afterward plunged into a new set of adventures. In 
SP she is still living, and he returns with her to the city of his 
queen- wife; To this extent, Card ends much as SP does. In 
Red Sh the hero, on his way returning to court, finds his father 
acting as a ferryman, to which lowly position he has been reduced 
by the hero's deserting companions; taking him upon his back 
(cf. the parallel situation in SP), the hero bears him to court and 
by his might secures him a position of honor; the hero at this time 
and place rejoins his bride. 

Wauchier and Manessier make their hero a celibate. C is 
unfinished. In Pd the hero does not marry the Besieged Lady, 
but he is no celibate, his fourteen years with the Empress of Cristi- 
nobyl being a trial marriage at least. In the other tales the hero 
marries the lady he has freed from siege, and through her, in most 
cases, wins a crown and realm; and such, doubtless, in a preliterary 
day, was the consummation of the Perceval tale. 



CONCLUSION 

By way of conclusion, I wish to restate succinctly the elements 
of the tale so far as these have been found separable; to discuss the 
probable growth of these elements into the Perceval tale ; to present 
a brief comment upon the home and early travels of the tale; and 
to offer a word upon the relation of SP to C 

The events studied in chapters I and II — the father's death, the 
widow's flight, the forest rearing, the boyish exploits, the revelation 
of knightly life, and the hero's departure to seek the court of the 
king — are, as we have seen, some or all of them to be found in a 
goodly number of widely scattered tales. But these events are not 
such as could ever have stood alone, could, that is, ever have 
formed a *' story," for by nature they are but precursory to those 
events of the hero's life that made it the life of a hero. 

The results of chapter III are such as to show that the Perceval 
tale includes a group of events — the Red Knight- Witch-Uncle story 
— that occurs in completer form elsewhere. Hence we decided there 
that this ''story" was in some manner absorbed into a frame- tale. 

Chapter IV, which is concerned with what is the climax of the 
plot in SP, the adventure by which the hero wins his wife, adduces 
the materials of the Saracen Influence. The events are not such as 
to compose a ''story." And the materials for the discussion of this 
"influence" are scanty. 

In chapter V we find that SP contains a series of incidents that 
occur elsewhere in so much the same fashion as to lead us to believe 
that they, combined with some events from chapter II, likewise 
constitute a story, the Tent Lady- Giant story. Again the mate- 
rials, confined to three versions, are scanty; but since the contamina- 
tion of either tale by the other (the Perceval and the Iwain tales, 
in the versions now accessible) would be a hypothesis most difficult 
to maintain, we decided upon the existence of this story in some 
form independent of either of these tales. The later events, the 
hero's search for his mother, his reunion with her, and his return 

ii6 



CONCLUSION 117 

to his wife, as they occur in SP, are subsidiary, and can never have 
stood alone as a story. 

These observations, then, lead us to conclude that the various 
Perceval tales, or versions of the Perceval tale, are sprung from a 
frame-tale that developed by incorporating into itself stories which 
had previously had an existence independent of it. Such a pro- 
cess of growth by absorption appears, so far as I am able to see, by 
no means abnormal. Pd affords a striking exemplification of it 
within our own cycle. The modern folk-tales show it frequently. 

Thus far we have depended upon analysis mainly. Let us 
extract the accretionary stories, and then test our results by the 
method of synthesis. In making the subtractions we need to bear 
in mind that if we were to deduct everything in the incorporated 
story we should tear away parts of the frame-tale, for, I take it, 
it was a similarity of some incident or situation in the frame-tale 
to an incident or situation in the added story that led the teller 
of the tale to make the incorporation. 

A-Stage. — The Frame-Tale. — The frame- tale had in it approxi- 
mately these incidents: 

(i) The father's death by violence (variants), (2) the mother's flight to a 
forest, (3) the boyish exploits, (4) the mother's explanation in reply to her son's 
questions, (5) the hero's discovery of the existence of a knightly life (variants), 

(6) the mother's advice (in some simple form) when the hero leaves the forest, 

(7) the arrival at court, (8) the heroine's request for aid, (9) the hero's rescue 
of the heroine (variants), (10) the hero's marriage and consequent succession 
to high estate, (11) the messenger to inform the king of the hero's success, (12) 
a battle with a giant to save a damsel, (13) the hero's reunion with his mother. 

Perhaps three other incidents were parts of this tale. The revenge 
motive was distinctly present, and there may have been an incident 
embodying it. Again, if the hero left his wife, there was the inci- 
dent of their reunion. And finally, there may have been, following 
upon (11), the incident (iix), the king's visit to the hero. 

Concerning (12), the battle with a giant, I am in doubt. It may 
have had another position, or it may not have been in the tale at 
all. The incident could have entered the Perceval tale first in the 
Tent Lady-Giant story, or its presence in the tale already in some 
form could have helped bring about the absorption of that story. 



Il8 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

I have included the incident in the frame-tale because so many 
versions of it have a battle with a giant in some form. Incident (4), 
the mother's explanation, was originally for the purpose of showing 
the lad's simple-mindedness, and it probably included either just 
the lad's question and the mother's reply that they two were the 
only people in the world, or this and the additional explanation as 
to how to slay beasts and bring them home for food. 

As for variants, the father's death, incident (i), must have been 
accomplished by violence to account for the mother's terror and 
flight, but variants could easily have arisen; he might be slain by 
treachery as in Card and W, in battle as in Fool, or in tourney as 
in Pd and SP. In incident (4) the means by which the knowledge 
of knighthood (or martial life) came to the hero was of secondary 
importance, and hence variants arose; it might be the appearance 
of knights as in the Perceval tale and Card, the sight of a dead 
knight in armor as in Liheaus Desconus, or the sight of a horse as 
in Fool. The place in which we should expect most variants is the 
account of how the heroine was won. The more the feat showed 
wonderful power in the hero, the better the tale. The heroine 
might need rescue from an enchanter who held her in bespelled 
form as in Card, or she might be under a spell that could be removed 
only by the accomplishment of a particular deed as in Ty, or (when 
we reach a narrator far removed from the folk-singer in temper) 
she might be held besieged by normal men as in C. 

In this stage the hero was not yet definitely named, and was in 
appearance a fool but in reality a predestined hero. He was the 
only one who could rescue the heroine, and his coming had been 
prophesied. 

In the summary I have not supplied details; and it is wholly 
possible the frame-tale was never quite so simple as I have made 
it appear. But even as it is, this summary appears to me to be the 
outline of a tale; it is too specific and (if the reader will supply the 
meanings the phrases have borne in the foregoing pages) too detailed 
to be considered merely a formula, such, for example, as the "Aryan 
Expulsion and Return Formula."^ The ninth and the tenth inci- 
dents are formula-like, and the reason for their being so was stated 
a few sentences back. 

'Cf. Hahn, Arische Aussetzung und RUckkehr Formel; Nutt, Stud., 153-54. 



CONCLUSION 



119 



This frame-tale underlies a pretty large number of tales, which 
have grown into their present form by the incorporation of different 
materials. And it is this twofold fact that accounts for the tanta- 
lizing resemblances that scholars have often noted. A table will 
be the best means for showing what I mean. The numerals refer 
to the incidents in the summary. A bracket means that the 
evidence of the tale seems to me to warrant the inference that the 
bracketed incident, though now gone, was once a part of the tale. 



SP 

W 

C 

PC 

Pd 

Card* . . . 
Libeaus D . 



Fool. 
Ty.. 



I 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 




iia? 


12 


I 


2 


3 


4 
[4] 
4 


5 
5 


6 
6 


7 
7 




9 
9 


10 


II 
II 


II^C? 




I 


2 


3 














I 


2 


3 


4 


5 


5 


7 




9 




II 




. . 


I 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


8 


12 


9 


10 


II 






2 






5 




7 


8 


12 


9 


10 


II 




I 


2 


3 


4 


5 




7 






9: 


O'Daly's ) 


1 2 




















version ) 




I 


2 


3 




5 




7 


« 




9 


10 







13 



13 



13 

two 
MSS 



13? 



*This summary accounts for much the larger part of Schofield's "Version A" (Harv. S. 
and N., IV, 154-57); of the nine sections, or groups of incidents, he sets up, his 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 
do not appear in my summary. The right of his 4 to a place in the summary is dubious; his 
3 is rather vague; 8 is really a part of 7; and 7 is a good deal of a commonplace (see his note). 
I am not sure but that an adventure with a fay or an enchantress, which Ues at the bottom of 
Schofield's 6, was a part of our frame-tale (cf. the fay in Ty and the faery in Fool), but the indi- 
cations are faint and much overlaid, and consequently I have preferred to risk an omission 
rather than make an expedition into the dangerous realm of the fays. 

Bel Inconnu and Wigalois have been much changed; cf. Schofield, op. cit. 

B -Stage. — The second stage is the result of the incorporation 
of the Red Knight- Witch-Uncle story into this frame- tale. From 
the evidence of SP, W, Pd{b), G, and the folk- tales we reconstruct 
the story with about the following incidents: 

(14) A magician's insult to the king and departure with some object belong- 
ing to him (teeth, cup), (15) the despised youth's offer to avenge the insult, 
(16) (a) his start and (b) early adventures, (17) (a) the meeting with a damsel 
(b) who gives him directions and (c) a magic ring (stone of victory), (18) (a) 
the encounter with the three young men (with or without their father), (b) 
who are the hero's relatives, and (c) under a spell, (19) (a) the battle in their 
behalf and (6) the death of the crone of the magic balm, (20) the hero's second 
visit to his relatives, (21) the death of the magician and the recovery of the 
king's property, (22) the hero's return to court, (23) the bestowal of honor by 
the king, (24) (a) the marriage of the hero (b) to the damsel who had given him 
the ring. 



I20 



SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 



Doubtless this summary is incomplete. The hero was pretty 
surely accompanied by companions, who may or may not have 
proved false to him; in Red Sh they prove false and carry off the 
heroine;^ in Conall companions join him on the way and assist 
him,^ and he provides wives for them; in Pd{h) only one companion 
(Etlym) appears, else the account is rather similar to Conall. 
Between incidents (21) and (22) may, have occurred the reunion 
of the hero and his parent, as in Red Sh; in Conall the father is 
found in duress and righted in the same position but in another 
manner. 

The presence of the incident in which the hero receives a magic 
ring from a damsel is assured, first, by the nature of the battle he 
had to fight, in which he would need magic to overcome magic; 
and, secondly and more strongly, by the testimony of Pd(b), Red 
Sh variant d (and cf. the magic shoes of variant a), and by the 
interchange of rings in Conall and other tales. 

The table shows the sequence of incidents in the more important 
versions of the story. It is arranged in two divisions. 

Versions unaffected by the Saracen Influence: 



Red Sh 

Variant e . . 
Ransom. . . 
' Champion . 
Fear Dubh 
Faolan .... 
Manus. . . . 

Dough 

Kil Arthur. 

Big Men . . 
Lawn D . . . 
G 



14 


15 


16 


17a 


18 


19 




20 


21 


22 


23 


14 


15 


16 


17 


18 


19 




20 


21 


22 


23 


14 


15 


16 


17a 


iSac 


19 




20 


21 


22 


? 


(Sub) 


(Sub) 






18 


19 




20 




22 




(Sub) 


(Sub) 






(18) 


19 




20 


(21) 












lyab 


i8ac 


19 


18b 


(20) 




22 










(17?) 


18 


19 




20 














(17) 


iSac 


19 




20 






(Sub) 








lyab 


i8ac 


19 




20 




22 










(+Sub 






















for c) 
















(Sub) 


(Sub) 






i8ac 


19 




20 


(Sub) 






14 


15 


16 


17 


18 


19 




20 


21 


22 


23 



24 
24 

24 

24a 

24 

24a 

24 



24 



Versions subjected to the Saracen Influence (the Hst is given here; 
the Influence itself produced the fourth, or D-Stage; cf . infra) : 

' At court one of these companions insults the heroine (who has just greeted the hero with 
a laugh), and is punished therefor; perhaps such an incident should be included in the siunmary, 
for doubtless it is the original of C's account of the damsel who first honors Perceval and is 
insulted by Kay, who in his turn is punished by Perceval. The insult to the king in C's 
soiurce drew the insult to the damsel into the court scene as a companion piece. 

' Conall is so far altered that the insulter has ceased to be a magician, is overthrown by 
the hero, and then becomes one of the companions. 



CONCLUSION 



121 



SP 

Conall. . . 
W (Par- 
zival). . 

(Gah- 
muret), 
Pd{h).... 



24 



l^ac 
16 

I'jac 
i6ab 



17 

17& 
(Sigune) 

186 



14 
14 

14 



IS 
15 

15 



1 6a 
1 6a 



16 



21 
21 



21 



iSac 



196 
19 



19a 

17 



18 
iSab 

1 8a 



19 



24 
20 

20 



20 
20 



19a 



22 



22 
22 



23 



14 



21 



24a 
24 



The process by which the story was absorbed into the frame-tale, 
expounded in chapter III, may be recapitulated here. The magi- 
cian's arrival at court and insult to the king (14) dislocated the ar- 
rival of the messenger bearing the heroine's request for aid (8) . The 
other incidents of the story, excepting (17), the meeting with the 
damsel of the magic ring, then followed down to (21), the death of 
the magician and the return of the king's property, though the 
sequence was altered. Incident (17), the gift of the magic ring 
that was to be needed in the combat against the magician, the carlin, 
and her alHes, could not easily have been omitted; with the new 
order of events produced by the incorporation, it was necessary 
for the hero to meet the damsel either between his departure from 
court and his encounter with the magician insulter or before his 
arrival at court; and the latter was early preferred. Incidents (18) 
and (20), the hero's two visits to his relatives, were easily amal- 
gamated, or one visit was dropped; the G and Red Sh versions 
of the story show two visits, Conall shows only one, and Pd{h) 
was congealed while in the intermediate state: G makes it sure 
that a two-visit form of the tale was associated with Perceval. It 
was after the second visit that he went to the relief of the heroine. 
By giving to a single hero the deeds of two, the tale-teller had 
placed himself in the way of providing his hero with two wives, 
which looks to us like a problem to solve, though solving it would 
have given little trouble to the teller of Red Sh variant b, who says 
of his hero that he ''married the three ladies at once." Incident (22), 
the hero's return to court, was lost in incident (11), the sending of 
a messenger to court to announce the hero's success. Doubtless 
in earlier times the hero was said to slay all his enemies; later some 
of them were saved alive and substituted for the messenger of 
success; and the notion of sending captive knights to court was 



122 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

one that would grow rapidly in favor with literary tellers of the 
tale. Incidents (23) and (24) were swallowed up in the marriage 
of the Besieged Lady and the honors and estates won thereby. 

Other changes have been commented on in chapters III and IV : 
how the Uncle came to be made uncle of the heroine in C; the death 
of the Uncle's sons or brothers in the war for the heroine in C and 
W; how Sigune is the representative of a damsel in the incorporated 
story; etc. Some additional comment concerning the damsel with 
the ring is to be made a few pages below. 

The tale at the end of the B-Stage, then, would be about 
thus: 

(i) The father's marriage; (2) his death in tournament or by treachery; 
(3) the mother's flight to the forest; (4) the boyish exploits; (5) the mother's 
explanation (or instruction) ; (6) the hero's meeting with knights in the forest; 

(7) the mother's advice (probably in simple form) at the hero's departure; 

(8) the meeting with a damsel who bestows a ring on the hero ; (9) the arrival 
at court (king's welcome, the prophecy, etc.) ; (10) the magician's insult and 
departure with a goblet ; (11) the hero in pursuit ; (12) the magician overthrown 
and the goblet sent back; (13) the first visit to the relatives who need help; 
(14) the battle against the carlin and her allies; (15) the second visit to the 
relatives; (16) the messenger for aid for the heroine; (17) the battle to relieve 
her — this incident showing varying degrees of contamination from 13, 14, and 
15; (18) the marriage feast; (19) messenger of success; (20) a battle with a 
giant to save a damsel; (21) the hero's reunion with his mother and return to 
his wife. 

C-Stage. — The third stage resulted from the weaving in of the 
Tent Lady- Giant story. The sources are too few for us to deter- 
mine the limits of this story with any exactness. As near as the 
incidents may be stated, we find them as follows: 

(22) The hero, entering a lady's castle, finds food and drink, and receives 
from the lady or her companion a magic ring; [next follows the hero's marriage, 
but the bride is not the lady who had bestowed the ring] ; (23) the king desires to 
see the hero; (24) the king's arrival in the midst of the marriage feast; (25) 
the hero's encounter with the king's party — the battle between friends (one 
being Gawain) who do not at first recognize each other; (26) the king enter- 
tained; [the hero's departure from his wife]; (27) the meeting with the lady 
in distress because of her former connection with the hero; (28) the battle 
in her behalf; (29) the resulting battle with a giant, (30) which was fought to 
relieve a kinswoman of Gawain. 



CONCLUSION - 1 23 

Three tales contain this story — SP, Yv, LF; a fairly full form 
of it appears to have been known to Wolfram's predecessor; and 
C and Pd contain emaciated forms of it. 

Before it appeared in the Perceval tale, it was so far subjected 
to the influence of some such tale as the one of which Erec is the 
hero, that the person who persecutes the damsel of the ring for her 
kindness to the hero is her husband. Apparently madness con- 
nected with a ring was part of this story. 

The points of similarity that led to the incorporation of story and 
tale were about these: — {a) incident (8), the meeting with a maiden 
who bestows a ring on the hero (preserved from the Red Knight- 
Witch-Uncle story), and incident (22), the encounter with the damsel 
of the ring in the Tent Lady- Giant story — the magic ring and the 
need of it in each case being the points of contact, the former inci- 
dent being absorbed into the latter, but determining the latter' s 
position in the tale;' {h) incidents (16), the messenger seeking aid, 
and (23), the king's desire to see the hero; (c) the marriage feast 

' It seems to me quite likely that the evolution of the Tent adventure may have been more 
complex than I have indicated above. In this footnote I may present one or two ideas concern- 
ing it that are based upon materials too scanty to entitle them to a presentation in the body of 
the paragraph, (a) The hero's meeting with a damsel who gives him a magic ring or token is 
a pretty well established event, drawn from the Red Knight- Witch-Uncle story. (6) In some 
forms of that story the hero comes to the house of the Young Men, enters a room in solitude, 
finds food set out and helps himself, and then later (in another room ?) meets with the sister 
of the Young Men, who welcomes him; such, more or less exactly, happens in Faolan, Manus 
(damsel is absent). Dough, Red Sh var. d. Nowhere does he find this damsel asleep, (c) 
Given the castle, the food, the going into more than one room, and the damsel, it would have 
been easy for some of the story of the visit to the sleeping damsel (as in Lonesome, for example) 
to enter. The original sleeping damsel is guarded by serpents, lions, and other monsters, 
whom the hero must escape while they too are asleep; in the reconstructed (euhemerized ?) 
account, the monster to be avoided is the jealous husband. The precipitate from the com- 
mixture of these events, then, was in the tale ready to assist the absorption of the Tent Lady- 
Giant story. 

SP knew only this form. But another form seems to have had this and in addition the 
meeting with the sister of the Young Men when she sat upon a hillside or by a forest and held 
on her knee the head of a sleeping warrior; from this second form sprang C and W, with their 
giermaine cosine and Sigune. 

When two women appear in the Red Knight-Witch-Uncle sto^ir (as in Pd{b), Hookedy, 
Lawn D, etc.), they were originally, I incline to think, but two appearances of the same per- 
sonage; nevertheless the tales do not state as much, and I may be wrong in reading anything 
of the sort into them. 

Miss Paton {Studies in the Fairy Mythology of Arthurian Romances, Boston [1903], pp. 
153 £f.) equates the Empress of Pd(b) with Morgain la Fee. Doubtless both of the women in 
the Red Knight-Witch-Uncle story were supernatural beings, but to equate either of them with 
Morgain is, so far as I can see, a mistake. 



124 • SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

was an amalgamating point, drawing within its limits incidents (i8), 
(19), (24), (25), and (26), the marriage feast and messenger of suc- 
cess in the frame-tale, and the king's desire to see the hero, his arrival 
in the midst of the marriage feast, and the hero's encounter with 
members of the royal household (especially Gawain) in the story; 
(d) incident (20), a battle with a giant to free a damsel, and the 
incidents (29) and (30), the battle with a giant to bring relief to 
Gawain 's kinswoman. 

After the setting up of this stage and before the time of any 
version that remains to us the tale must have continued to grow. 

The mother's explanation, developed into the Instruction, was 
brought into a connection with the appearance of the knights in 
the forest, and the hero's error of supposing them God was worked 
out. The Advice and the incident at the Tent were correlated; 
in the stories used, the hero took a ring, and food and drink, and 
kissed the Lady; the kiss and the Lord's treatment of the Tent 
Lady were already established affairs; then the Mother's Advice 
was revised to include these matters: this explanation does not 
make the Advice seem natural in a mother's mouth, but it at 
least supposes natural steps by which the Advice could come to 
be what it is.^ 

The later parts of the tale, from the arrival at court on, do not 
appear to have needed much readjustment. 

The name Perceval did not dispossess other names for the hero 
until the tale entered the third, or C-Stage. 

At the end of the C-Stage the tale ran about thus: 

(i) The father's marriage; (2) his death in tournament or by treachery; 
(3) the mother's flight to the forest; (4) the boyish exploits; (5) the mother's 
instruction; (6) the hero's meeting with knights in the forest; (7) the mother's 
advice (expanded) at the hero's departure; (8) the adventure at the Hall (or 
Tent), including the meal, the kissing of the sleeping lady, and the departure 
with her magic ring; (9) the arrival at court (king's welcome, perplexity, etc.); 

* Of course I am aware that rationality is no essential in directions to a hero in folk-tales; 
he may be irrationally advised to do the absurdest things, which in the end prove to be the 
wisest things; but I wonder if we should not find, if we knew the whole truth, that the wise- 
absurd deeds were thought of first and then the irrational advice or instruction adapted to 
fit them ? The interest of an audience in the bearing of such advice upon such deeds is similar 
to the interest in the connection of a riddle to its answer. And does one invent a riddle and 
then discover the answer, or think of an answer and then invent a perplexing question to fit it ? 



CONCLUSION 125 

(10) the magician's insult and departure with the king's goblet; (11) the hero 
in pursuit; (12) the magician overthrown and the goblet sent back; (13) the 
hero's first visit with the relatives who need help; (14) the battle against the 
carlin and her allies; (15) the second visit to the relatives; (16) the heroine's 
messenger for aid; (17) the battle to relieve her — this incident showing vary- 
ing degrees of contamination from 13, 14, 15; (18) the marriage feast; (19) 
the king's desire to see the hero (roused by the messenger's report of the hero's 
deeds) and departure to seek him; (20) the king's arrival in the midst of the 
marriage feast; (21) the hero's encounter with members of the king's house- 
hold — the battle between two friends (hero and Gawain) who do not recog- 
nize each other at first; (22) the king entertained at the wife's castle; (23) 
the hero's departure to seek his mother; (24) the meeting with the lady in dis- 
tress because of her former connection with the hero; (25) the overthrow of 
her oppressor; (26) the resulting battle with a giant; (27) the relief of Gawain's 
kinswoman persecuted by the giant; (28) the hero's reunion with his mother 
and his return to his wife. 

D-Stage. — Doubtless the tale, in the C-Stage, had minor varia- 
tions for each narrator. But it appears to have entered into a new 
stage when two streams of the tradition became marked, of which one 
continued on its way with little alteration except such as came from 
weathering, while the other was changed by being subjected to the 
Saracen Influence. From the first stream came C and G; from 
the second, SP, W, Pd{b), and parts of Pd{a). 

In chapter IV I have explained what I mean by ^'Saracen Influ- 
ence" — not at all the influence of eastern tales or eastern adven- 
tures upon this tale, but the effect produced by a change of conno- 
tation in some of the phrases already present within the tale, and 
the consequent alteration in its supposititious geography. This 
influence appears not uncommonly in Gaelic tales. And SP, W, 
and Pd(b) show it. To account for its origin, there is no need to 
presume contaminations from Charlemagne or other romances, 
nor to suspect additions from persons who had been among the 
Crusaders.' 

That the ancestors of SP, W, and Pd(b) hung more closely 
together than did those of SP and C, has been abundantly shown 

' Some of my readers must have been surprised that I have made no mention of the " Celtic 
Other World." Scholars assure us that the terms Constantinople, Greece, Spain, Scotland, 
Castle of Maidens, the Town under the Waves, etc., are all substitutes for, or localizations of, 
the Other World; and doubtless they are right. It is perhaps true, further, that the "stories" 
I have been discussing are of mythological descent. It would be easy and entertaining to set 



126 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

in the preceding pages — and this in spite of the fact that SP and C, 
exclusively, inherit two certain strong traits of family likeness, the 
instance of the hero's boorishness at court and the burning of the 
Red Knight's body, as discussed supra, pp. 44 ff. In the history of 
the father, the mother's flight, and the boyish exploits, SP and W 
(and even Pd{a) in part) stand together as opposed to C. In the 
account of Gurnemanz' children W contains (correctly) matter 
that could not have come from C. And SP, W (the account of 
Gahmuret), and Pd(b) are held together by the Saracen Influence. 
Compare the summary on pp. 120 ff. 

The tale did not cease to develop within the D-Stage. In the 
SP-W stream the Red Knight and the Tent Lord were brought into 
contact with the hero's father; the old notion of the father's death 
by violence and something of a revenge motive lingered on dimly, 
and imder its influence the Knight and the Lord, who were over- 
thrown by Perceval, were made to meet and harm the father, but 
inasmuch as the death of the Red Knight and the downfall of the 
Tent Lord were already established events when drawn into the 
tale, the revenge motive was not sufficiently strong to affect them 
much, and consequently it lapsed — it is weak in Fool, sl tale of 
the A-Stage. 

Up to, and including, the D-Stage, the tale was a biographical 
and not a quest tale; it became a quest tale, in some versions, only 
when some additional materials were engrafted. 

After the D-Stage, still two other stories were incorporated 
into some versions, the Grail and the Swan-Knight stories. 

E-Stage. — ^At just what point the Grail story entered the tale 
I must leave others to determine. That the account of the Grail 

up an Other- World Visit to a Fay as the origin for one "story" (Lonesome and Uyerree would be 
excellent tales to build on); and an adventure against dark gods — who eventually develop 
into black men, then to Saracens — would make a good starting (or ending) point for the Red 
Knight- Witch-Uncle story, which indeed does look Uke the offspring of a Solar Myth. 

I have not felt forced to penetrate this hinterland in my search, and so I have stopped short 
of it. Too often, I think, Celtic material has behaved like the horse of the Slothful GiUie in 
Gilla Decair: the moment a student touched it, his hands stuck fast, and away it galloped with 
him to the Other World. And to drink of the milk of Paradise is, I suspect, as dangerous as 
to sip at the Pierian Spring. I beheve that the theory of an Other- World visit can easily do 
us harm, bUnd our e'es as much as the Solar-Myth hypothesis bedazzled the orbs of our fathers. 
It explains so much that one almost begins to doubt if it can truly explain anything. 



CONCLUSION 127 

was a story incorporated into the Perceval tale appears to me no 
longer subject to doubt. But whether Crestien first incorporated 
the story^ and Kiot used his version, or vice versa, or whether both 
had a common source, or whether Kiot's version had anything of the 
Grail in it, remains to be decided. Such few facts as I am able to 
perceive lead rather in the direction of a decision that Crestien 
was not the man who made the incorporation: {a) Crestien was 
not averse to magic and marvels (cf. Erec, Yvain, Charrette, and 
supra, p. 67, n. 2) but that part of C that deals with Perceval 
(the adventures connected with the Grail being excluded) 
has magic all expunged; (b) C appears to show the work of two 
hands — one man rigidly rationalized the Perceval tale to make it 
a fitting vehicle for the Grail story and omitted some parts of 
it, and then a second man, who did not know the original Perceval 
tale, revised the first man's work, supplying a few parts (especially 
if the disputed passage, 11. 1607-82, be genuine), and elaborated 
the Gawain incidents at the end, in which magic again occurs. 

F-Stage. — The introduction of the Swan-Knight story (W, G) 
may have preceded the E-Stage or followed it. This, too, is a 
problem for others to solve. G's use of the Swan-Knight story 
and its freedom (at the same time) from the Saracen Influence render 
its position in the genealogical tale most difficult to determine. 

In the table given on p. 128 I have endeavored to indicate, 
sketchily, the probable evolution of the Perceval tale. 

Crestien is usually said to have obtained the materials for his tale 
of Perceval from either Welsh or Armorican sources. If my analysis 
of the tale, however, be accepted as approximately correct, we 
find that its constituent parts have retained their life longest and 
in the simplest shape in the lands bordering the Irish Sea and the 
North Channel and in the islands still to the north. We know that 
the Celtic inhabitants here are and were great story-tellers. The 
natural gateway through which their tales would reach English 
hearers would be the territory extending from Carlisle (or Edin- 

' Cf. Foerster's comment, Karrenritter (large ed., 1899), p. xciv, and pp. cxl ff. 



128 



SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 



A-Stage: Frame-tale 



Red Knight- Witch-Uncle Story 




CONCLUSION 129 

burgh) to Chester. And that it was within this territory that 
the Perceval tale (into its D-Stage) took shape, appears to me in 
the highest degree probable. I have shown how certain folk- 
tales of the neighboring territory could have developed into the 
Perceval tale: the reverse is impossible; C, the oldest written 
version of the Perceval tale, could never have given rise to the other 
tales we have been studying. Two or three more facts may be 
mentioned as offering circumstantial evidence that this territory 
was the mother-country. Pd{h) is the form of the Red Knight- 
Witch-Uncle story that varies farthest from the norm; it is not 
unreasonable to suspect that this condition is due to the fact that 
while as yet in oral tradition, this version had got farthest away 
from home, was least subject, i.e., to the check of an audience more 
or less acquainted with it. The Addanc seems to be peculiarly 
a Welsh substitute for the Hag and her allies.^ SP belongs by 
dialect to this territory, and SP is not to be accounted for as a 
descendant of any known French or other version. The tale could 
easily have been carried east to Edinburgh, Durham, York, or 
Lincoln, or to Wales, and thence to France. Finally, the geography 
of all the tales in the group we have studied accords better with the 
geography of this section than with that of any other.^ 

The first of the two serious objections that can be raised against 
this theory lies in the personal names. If SP did not owe its per- 
sonal names — Perceval "de Galays,"^ Arthur, Gawain, Ewain, 

' The name of Peredur's father, Evrawc, equals York. Rhys comments {Arlh. Leg., 
75, note): "For the legend which connects Peredur with the Yorkshire town of Pickering, see 
Stop's Annales or General Chronicles of England (London, 1615), I, 12." For arguments that 
Welsh and Gaels came in contact in, or to, the north of Wales, see Rhys, Celtic Folklore, II, 
SS3-S4» and Nutt, "Mabinogion Studies," Folk Lore Record, V (1882), 1-32, On "Addanc," 
see " Afanc" in the index to Rhys's Celtic Folklore (Oxford, 1901). 

On this Northwest-of-England territory as a gateway for the entrance of Gaelic tales, cf . 
the last of the routes discussed by G. H. Maynadier in chap, v of his Wife of Bath's Tale (London, 
igoi). 

' My argtmient for SP's independence of C will not be affected by any geographical decision 
the reader may reach. He may prefer to believe that the Breton nobles and their followers 
who were established in northwest England by WilUam the Conqueror from 1 169 on (cf. Zim- 
mer, Z. f. nf. Sp., XIII, 91 &., and his references to Freeman's Norman Conquest) brought 
with them the account which was later to secure so firm a hold among the dwellers thereabouts. 
To me it appears much more probable that the Bretons and other Continentals learned the 
tales in the Borderland territory and carried them thence to France. Which of these two things 
happened or whether either ever really happened, cannot as yet be determined. 

» C's form is li Gallois; SP has "the Galayse" (1643) and "de Galays" (1990). 



130 SIR PERCEVAL OF GALLES 

Kay, Achefiour — to C, there is no reason for believing it ever came 
under the influence of the French version in the sHghtest degree. 
Since Wolfram (Kiot) and Gerbert attributed to Perceval that which 
they could not possibly have taken from C; since Pd{b) attributed 
to Peredur incidents which its author could hardly have suspected 
of being variants of some in G, even if he knew G; since a similar 
statement may be made of SP; and since we have determined 
that these attributions were correctly made; it is only fair to con- 
clude that the hero became known as Perceval (Peredur, in Wales) 
early in the C-Stage of the tale, while it as yet lived an oral life 
and some time before it reached the hands of Crestien. The name 
Perceval was, it would seem from the attempts to explain it, a 
puzzle to the French romancers.' Hence, until some scholar can 
explain its source and meaning, it should not be offered as evidence 
against the geographical theory just propounded. 

The second objection is to be found in the use of the Tent Lady- 
Giant story. But until the provenance of the Iwain tale and its 
component parts shall have been determined, this objection can 
be considered as ground only for a suspended, not for an adverse, 
judgment upon the theory. 

To the reader who has been patient enough to follow me thus 
far, let me point out this fact: PC, W, Pd, and G have been most 
valuable as guides and controls in seeking and weighing evidence; 
but the use of no one of them, nor of all of them put together, has 
been an indispensable factor in the establishment of any of my 
main contentions, with the single exception of the matter of dates; 
for all of these contentions could have been based on the evidence 
of the folk-tales and the Iwain tale. 

Further recapitulation is not needed to show that, first, C, with 
or without its prefaces and continuations, cannot have served as a 
source for some parts of SP; and, second, that its influence in any 
way is not necessarily to be supposed to account for any or all of 
SP.^ The English poem is, I think, wholly independent of the 
French one. 

' Cf. Perlesvaus, Par-lui-fet, Perce-Forest, etc., with the explanation that Perceval means 
"through the valley," etc. 

'The "considerable number of verbal coincidences" between SP and C of Newell, Leg. 
of the Holy Grail, 82,1 have not discovered. 



CONCLUSION 131 

Most students have presumed that SP is either an adaptation 
or a translation of a French original. I see no way to prove that 
it is or is not. But I see no especial ground for believing that it 
is; and I think it will be simpler and more in accordance with all 
the evidence in the case to consider it an English singer's versifica- 
tion of a folk-tale that was known in his district of Northwest 
England. 



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